


Inked

by pyrchance



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Band, M/M, Magical Realism, Magical Tattoos, Mind Control, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrchance/pseuds/pyrchance
Summary: Frank has always wanted a tattoo.He's pretty sure seducing the witch lurking behind the band room is the only way to get one.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 181
Kudos: 208





	1. Chapter 1

Frank has always wanted a tattoo.

Exasperated public school teachers up and down New Jersey will vouch for the weeks he’s spent scribbling ink into his skin in class. By the time junior year rolls around, Frank’s gotten pretty good at drawing what he thinks he wants on his skin. He can do all the classics — the infinity ’s’, a killer lightning bolt, even a pretty mean scorpion when he puts his mind to it. He’s ready to commit, to take the plunge, to pop his skin’s virgin cherry.

And sure, he _could_ go to an actual tattoo shop. Except that would require things like money and being eighteen, or at least being able to fake it with actual facial hair and, you know, being over the size of a hobbit.

But since he _isn’t_ any of those things, his only real option is to corner Gerard Way behind the band room one day and seduce him.

“I don’t know. That kind of magic can get weird.”

This is said by the same guy whose face turns out black and blurry in every school yearbook, like he’s already a bad memory. Frank wonders if that’s a nasty curse or just a product of design as Gerard lifts a cigarette between two chipped fingernails. It definitely fits his reputation.

Luckily, Frank has come prepared. He drops his backpack to the ground, does a quick look around for the campus security officer, then rifles through his bag to get the comic he’d nicked ages ago. Gerard Way drops the hand holding his cigarette, staring wide-eyed as Frank pulls out the glossy cover. Frank doesn’t know shit about comics, but he does know whatever is kept behind a glass case is probably valuable.

“How in the fuck?” says Gerard, reaching for it.

“Ah ah ah,” sings Frank. He drops the comic back in his bag, zipping it up and tossing it over his shoulder. “This is a trade, my friend, not a give away. Come on. What do you got for me?”

Gerard scowls. For a dude barely taller than Frank, his eyebrows are particularly thick and menacing. “I don’t like this. This is a bad idea.”

“Probably.”

“Didn’t you fail Runes 1? Do you even know how to cast a ritual? ”

Frank, who didn’t know what he was asking for _was_ a ritual, just shrugs. So he’s not so good at fussy little spells found in most school books. Sue him. His favorite kind of magic rarely requires such prissy details. “I’m a quick study,” he lies.

Frank is still grinning, because despite Gerard’s misgivings, Frank knows he’s got him. There’s no way a guy currently wearing a _Hulkinator_ t-shirt is going to pass up on comic book gold.

Sure enough, after a few more seconds of angry smoking, Gerard folds.

“I can get you what you want,” he says, slouching against the wall. He gives Frank a shrewd look from under his greasy hair. “Give me a few days though.”

He takes another drag from his cigarette while Frank practically vibrates. “Oh man. Thank you so much, dude. You’re not going to regret this.”

Gerard doesn’t seem as enthused. “You _have_ done blood magic before, right?” he asks.

“Um,” says Frank.

For the very first time, a slight shiver of misgiving runs through him. Gerard is a cool dude. A little creepy, and weirdly quiet for someone once accused of starting a cult, but overall a rather approachable witch. Frank knows this because Gerard’s best friend is Ray Toro, and Ray Toro might be the most reputable person Frank knows.

But the Ways are witches. Not like Frank, who dabbles in magic like most of the populace, struggling to remember moon phases and flunking out of freshmen classes. The Ways are so seeped in magic they practically ooze the occult. Frank knows that Gerard has eyes on him. Frank isn’t the only one looking to Gerard for favors. This little sliver of real-estate behind the band room might as well be an alley for the way Gerard turns tricks.

There’s something about the way Gerard is looking at him, dark and ominous, that strips back the casualness of his visit. Frank suddenly remembers the heebie-jeebies he’d gotten back in freshman year when he’d first spotted Gerard around school, dark and lumbering, smelling like dead things and dirt and burning. Frank had been drawn in like a moth to a porch light, ready to break his head against the glass if it meant getting close to that light.

It was perhaps a good thing that Frank was a year younger. Until band this year, they’d shared no classes. Frank had never actually gotten the courage to approach the witch until now, much as his eyes had marked him in the hallways.

Gerard Way is probably bad news. Frank should probably turn around now and head back inside, pretending nothing ever happened.

Still.

There’s an itch under Frank’s skin that’s dying for ink. It’s the same itch that sees him making questionable hair choices in his bathroom at 3am or fucking around with eyeliner or taking bleach and scissors to his jeans. It’s his skin and he wants to own it.

So Frank shoves down that trickle of uncertainty and grins back at Gerard.

“Yeah, yeah, of course I’ve done blood magic before, man.”

How hard could one little tattoo be?

Gerard delivers on his promise three days later. Frank exchanges the comic for a slip of notebook paper squished with tidy handwriting, coffee rings, and, inexplicably, a tiny doodle of a judgmental monkey.

“That’s Pogo,” says Gerard off-hand, already flipping through the pages of the comic. “He’s a chimpanzee.”

“Did you just read my mind?” Frank asks, studying the many, many lines of ritual magic. His head jerks up. “Wait. Can you read people’s minds? What am I thinking about _right now?_ ”

Gerard lifts his eyes from the pages long enough to glare. “That’s gross, dude. Also, I need that paper back when you’re done with it. What you’ve got there is not exactly, uh, above the board.”

Gerard scrapes his hair behind his ears as he talks. Frank stares and realizes that it’s a nervous habit. Gerard is uncomfortable. The idea of it makes Frank stand taller.

“Did you— hold on, did you make this yourself?”

 _For me?_ Frank wants to ask. He was expecting something ripped from an obscure grimoire, not hand-designed and personal.

“Well—” More hair is scraped behind an ear as Gerard shrugs. “Yeah.”

Frank blinks at him. Even Frank knows selling or trading untested spells is a big no-no in most legal circuits. Hell, most sane people would blanch at the idea of just modifying a spell, let alone creating one. He doesn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. “Dude, I thought you’d just rip one from a spellbook or something.”

“Seriously?” Gerard actually looks a little pissed. It’s an interesting look. One corner of his mouth turns down farther than the other. “You think I’d _steal_ a spell?”

“What? No!” That wasn’t what Frank had been thinking at all.

“I’m not a _thief_.”

“Of course not,” agrees Frank quickly. He knows enough to know that he’s stepped in it. “And really, who said you were? Not me. No way, man. You’re one stand up guy, you know. A real, uh, a real boy scout.”

Frank may have tried to hit sincere so hard it turned into sarcasm. He winces, but the rambling seems to have worked. Gerard just rolls his eyes.

“Whatever. If you don’t want the spell, I can take it back.” Gerard’s lips thin. His eyebrows, if possible, thicken. “Unless you don’t trust my spellwork.”

Why does fate insist that Frank piss off this witch? He shakes his head so fast his neck hurts. “Hey, no, of course. Of course I do.”

Then, because he is a coward at heart, Frank tucks the ritual deep into his pocket and scurries away. The heat of Gerard’s glare follows him like a brand, but at least the itch under his skin feels cooled.

He’s kneeling in the bathroom that night after his mom goes to bed. He’s in the bathroom because his bedroom has carpet and when Gerard said ritual, he really did mean drawing a full diagram on the floor. It’s fine. Frank needs the mirror anyway.

Because Frank isn’t a complete idiot, he actually reads the scribbled instructions before starting and thinks he’s done a fine enough job. The ritual itself doesn’t seem that hard. It looks like a mostly standard array — candles and chalk lines, all geometric shapes and shit. He’d even broken out his ruler to neaten out the lines, something that would probably make his old geometry teacher weep.

It’s not meant to be a stick and poke tattoo, but there is one needle involved. Lighting the candles, Frank settles himself in the center of the array with several sharpies of various thicknesses. He uncaps them all, then picks up the needle he’d dug out of his mom’s sewing kit.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he selects his right hand index finger as the sacrifice. No need to impede his fretting hand or go through calluses. The ritual is insistent on bleeding with intent, so Frank doesn’t let himself hesitate as he drives the needle into the tip of his finger. It hurts sure, and the blood that wells up and drips down his finger is a bit unnerving, but it’s fine honestly.

He drips three drops of blood onto the tip of each marker. He holds his breath for a long second after, then slowly lets it ease out. There. No big deal. Frank pretends there isn’t a little voice in the back of his head screaming _Blood is Bad_ and _Just Say No To Blood Magic_. B.A.R.E can suck his ass.

And that’s it. There’s a slight tingle in the air that Frank associates with casting, but no government authority immediately kicks in the door to arrest him for illegal magic. After a few moments, his shoulders relax.

Frank shoves his bleeding finger into his mouth and contemplates his blank skin with a building sense of glee. He’s debated long enough that he knows he wants a jack o’lantern to be his first tattoo, in honor of his birthday. The excitement is bubbling up like a shot. It’s enough to make him sing.

“ _Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.”_

He might go a little crazy. Still singing, smiling, giggling when it strikes him, there’s no hesitation as he reaches for the first sharpie, feels the magic humming in his hand, and begins to draw.

“ _Happy birthday, dear Frankie! Happy birthday to me!”_

And that’s when the candles blow out.

“Frank!”

_Pap! Pap! Pap!_

“Get out of this bathroom! You’re going to be late for school!”

Frank comes to consciousness with a jerk. His mom’s palm strikes the door, just as his foot cracks against the bathtub nearly breaking his toes. Frank shoves a fist in his mouth, whimpering as his mom’s footsteps thunder away from the door.

Frank doesn’t wonder where he is. There’s no blissful moment of confusion. He wakes up and he remembers _exactly_ what he’d been doing the moment the ritual went wonky. He just doesn’t know what he _did_.

He sits up, feeling much older than sixteen with the way his body aches. He’s half sprawled inside the array, limbs smeared with chalk. Somehow, the candles are still faintly smoldering, filling the whole room in a haze of smoke. It must have been hours since he passed out. Not good.

He grabs them up quickly, throwing them into the sink and running the water. Something ripples and releases in the air when the last tendrils of heat sputter.

Not good. Not good. Not good.

He fumbles for the light switch, flicks it, and leans in close to the mirror.

For the second, Frank sees nothing but clear, clean skin. He checks the crook of his wrist where he had begun drawing last night and sees nothing. He scours his arms, rips off his shirt, and studies himself in the mirror. Nothing.

For all of three seconds, he is relieved. The ritual has failed, he thinks.

Then he turns around.

“Oh,” Frank breathes.

In the center of his back, perched between his shoulder blades grins a pumpkin carved in ink. It’s malevolent and terrifying and fat. Dark thick lines and intricate shading detail the tattoo, far better than anything he could draw himself.

And it isn’t alone.

As Frank watches, the lines of the tattoo deepen. Something—a vine maybe, or a chain—starts to emerge faintly near the edges of the jack o’lantern. The ink is spreading. Growing. Slowly, but even as he stares the hues deepen and the ink moves.

And Frank hasn’t the faintest idea on how to make it stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like it, please let me know. You can also come talk to me on tumblr @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com).


	2. Chapter 2

“Well,” says Gerard. “You fucked up.”

Frank lowers his shirt with a scowl, turning around to glare. The bathroom stall they’ve commandeered is too small of this shit, making it feel more like a passing period make-out session than a crisis, but it was all Frank could think to do.

“Yeah, I got that part. Can you fix it or not?”

“I mean, what were you even going for? A full back piece? And why would you draw on your _back_? That’s ballsy.”

The slight giggles leaking out of Gerard are doing very little for Frank’s temper. “I didn’t. That’s the point. I’m telling you. It fucking moved.”

Gerard shakes his head, leaning back on the stall, still smiling. “I’m telling you, the spell doesn’t do that. It’s just your basic permanence ritual, with a few tweaks for skin. I use something like it all the time on art stuff.”

“You said blood magic is weird,” says Frank, crossing his arms. He isn’t above using violence, but even he isn’t stupid enough to hit a witch.

Gerard shrugs. “I mean, yeah, it is. But by weird I mean rotting your flesh off weird, not using you like an Etch-A-Sketch.”

“Well it happened,” says Frank.

Apparently Frank sounds pissy enough because Gerard sighs. “Fine. Turn around again. Lemme see it.”

Frank does one better and strips off his shirt entirely. He cranes his neck, trying to tell if the tattoo has spread. It’s impossible for him to see. The jack o’lantern sits too high on his back, a place that Frank can barely scratch, let alone draw on. Frank knows he isn’t making this shit up.

Gerard is quiet for a few seconds. When Frank glances back, he sees Gerard wearing a funny blank expression, eyes locked somewhere above Frank’s head. His face is slightly pink.

“Dude,” says Frank, half turning. “Come on. Don’t be a fucking prude.”

If anything Gerard’s blush deepens. “Shut up.”

Frank doesn’t have _time_ for this. The tattoo is _spreading_. If he doesn’t want to wear turtle necks and, you know, be murdered by his mom for having a tattoo, he needs this fixed. Immediately.

“Gerard,” he says, turning around and crossing his arms. “Seriously. I’m in trouble, man. ”

Gerard’s eyes snap down with a glare of his own. “I told you this was a bad idea,” he snaps.There’s a burst blood vessel in his cheek that brings a surprising amount of color of his face. It’s a good reminder that Gerard is only human, and probably not going to suck Frank’s blood.

Frank brings his hands up in front of his chest. “Do I have to get down on my knees a beg? Cause let me tell you, I’ve got zero dignity holding me back.”

Gerard hisses. “Seriously. Stop talking. And turn around.”

Their feet would make a funny picture, Frank thinks as he turns and faces the wall again. He’s gotten what he wants. Frank can hear Gerard shuffling closer and pictures him leaning in for a better look. He knows he’s right when he feels the phantom sensation of warm breath on his back.

Huh. Okay, so maybe he shouldn’t have taken his whole shirt off. This is a bit more intimate than he bargained for.

“Well?” he demands, shifting.

“Hold still,” murmurs Gerard softly.

Cold fingers press into Frank’s shoulder blades. Frank feels a sudden shiver, like he’s got the chills, and his whole body breaks out in goosebumps. Gerard pulls back with a muttered curse.

“What?” demands Frank, spinning around. “What happened?”

Gerard is holding up his hand in front of him, looking at it with a prissy frown. That’s when Frank spies a line of dark liquid running down Gerard’s index finger. 

“I think your tattoo just bit me,” Gerard says.

“I don’t think that’s blood.”

It’s too dark to be blood. Frank grabs Gerard’s hand, pulling it in closer to see. He’s right. It isn’t blood.

“It’s ink,” says Frank, disturbed.

Gerard jerks his hand out of Frank’s grasp. “What the hell did you do?”

They both stare as the ink snakes its way down Gerard’s finger, wetting the sleeve end of his jacket. Gerard grabs a wad of toilet paper and tries wiping it away. The second he clears the ink they can both see a stain growing on his skin. It moves by itself, sinking into the back of Gerard’s palm like a dark bruise.

Frank looks at Gerard’s face, hoping for an explanation. He sees nothing there but growing dread.

Gerard swallows, tilting his hand up to catch the ink stain on his palm. When he lowers his hand, he’s glaring at Frank in a way that might actually be a curse.

Then he smiles. It isn’t a nice smile. Mostly it reminds Frank of a dog baring its teeth.

“Well, Frank, I guess we’re having a sleepover.”

Frank peers down the stairs to the darkened basement and tries not to say something stupid. Frank isn’t sure what Gerard’s hearing is like, but the old rumors of vampirism are crawling back into Frank’s brain.

It’s the middle of the day, midday in fact. That would make him feel better if it did not mean the house was completely deserted. Gerard’s brother is still at school and his folks must be at work. This leaves Frank with nothing but a pissed off Gerard and another black mark on his attendance record.

“So, uh, a basement, huh?”

Gerard rolls his eyes again like he knows exactly what Frank is thinking. Which Frank is still half convinced he might. Gerard tromps down the stairs without another word, leaving Frank standing like a wimp on the top landing.

Frank takes one last look around—the Way house _looks_ normal enough, at least up here—before girding his balls and taking his first steps into the deep.

It’s the smell that hits Frank first. He almost turns and runs right there, because Frank is 100% certain that something must have died down here for the basement to reek so bad.

The second thing he notices is the sheer abundance of stuff. It’s more junk thank Frank’s addled brain can sparse through. Bookshelves crammed with comics and paperbacks, rows and rows of tiny figurines lining the edges of nearly ever flat surface, angry bands on posters that leer out at Frank from their perches on the walls and ceiling—all of this does not even begin to cover the collection of animal parts (bones, organs, eyeballs) stuffed into jars or shoved into careless heaps.

“Are you a _necromancer_?” says Frank’s mouth before Frank’s brain can stop it.

“Not really,” says Gerard. “I dabble.” He waves a wishy-washy hand like he hasn’t just casually admitting to some seriously illegal shit. The kind of stuff that once got people burned at the stake. “Hurry up. I want to check the spell.”

Gerard moves around the room, kicking aside dirty laundry and digging into the drawers of a cluttered desk. Frank stays where he is on the edge of the stairs, not stepping inside. He jumps when Gerard throws a piece of chalk at him.

“What the hell?”

“Draw the array,” says Gerard. “I need to see where you messed up.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t,” says Frank. Explaining his process was all they had done on their awkward walk here. Gerard had nodded along and everything.

“Well, I know the ritual I gave you is fine. So yeah, you must have done something.”

Gerard slips the ritual page out of his pocket and casually mends it back into an old fashion composition notebook. He casts the mending charm without even speaking or waving or doing any of the shit that normal people do. Frank wants to punch him.

He watches at Gerard pushes his bed toward a wall, making a clear space on the floor for Frank to work with. Part of Frank wants to cross his arms and keep arguing, but too much of him is aware of the trickle of ink on his back.

Fifteen minutes later, he sits back on his heels with a grunt, wiping chalk onto his pants. Gerard hovers on the edge of the array, looking down at it with a critical eye.

“That line’s wobbly,” Gerard says, pointing.

“Fuck you, man.” Then, because the line is sort of wobbly, Frank asks, “Could that have really fucked it? I used a ruler at home.”

“I doubt it.” Gerard squats down next to the array, comparing what Frank drew to what is in his book. Frank’s rather impressed with himself for remembering it, to be honest, though looking at it in comparison to what he’s glimpsed in the rest of Gerard’s notes makes him feel like a kid with crayons.

Moth to porch light. Frank leans over, trying to see the page.

Gerard smells like cigarettes under the dead things, Frank learns, and spooks when Frank gets too close.

“What?” Gerard says, jerking back his shoulder out from under Frank’s chin. When Frank manages to catch his balance again, he finds Gerard looking at him warily.

“Well?” asks Frank.

Gerard’s still staring like Frank just said boo. Eventually, his eyes narrow. “It looks okay. You’ve got all the elements and they’re in the right order. Crooked lines wouldn’t have this sort of affect on something this basic.” Gerard sounds almost disappointed. Frank smiles with all his teeth, happy to be a little shit even if it is making his own life more difficult too.

“So you’ve got no idea is what you’re saying.”

“I know you did something wrong,” Gerard replies immediately.

“But you’re clueless.”

“Whatever.”

Frank rocks back on his heels, growing bored as Gerard starts muttering to himself, nose buried deep in his book. The longer he stays in this creepy basement, the more the edge of weirdness wears off. Frank sort of wants to poke Gerard again, to see if he’ll twitch. Instead, he goes wandering over to one of the bookshelves, picking at the spines and pretending he doesn’t see the line of mice skeletons frozen on the highest shelf.

He eventually flops onto Gerard’s bed with a beat up copy of a Star Trek serialization, lying on his stomach and pretending he’s not watching Gerard work. Gerard is muttering to himself, crooked mouth thin and displeased, hunch-backed and ugly.

It’s an interesting sight, is all Frank is saying. He lets his gaze loose focus on the shiny pale skin of Gerard’s bent forehead and ignores the itch of spreading ink under his skin.

“Shirt off.”

“Hrmmg?”

“Shirt off. I need to see it.”

Frank’s heard prettier propositions before, but given these are the first words Gerard’s spoken to him in the past several hours, he listens. His back creaks as he sits up—an old man at sixteen—and he subtly wipes the drool from his nap on his sleeve.

Gerard is looking slightly manic, eyes bright and shiny for once not hidden by the hair tucked behind his ears.

“Did you figure it out?” Frank asks, popping his back with a groan.

“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s weird. Snap snap.”

He actually says _snap snap_. What a dweeb. Frank strips his jacket and shirt off and chucks them across the floor, figuring Gerard’s place is a wreck anyway. He cranes his neck to get a look at the ink too, only to freeze when he realizes he doesn’t need to. There’s ink on his shoulders now, lines of thin something beginning to carve down the slope of his arm.

“Oh fuck.”

He shoves himself out of Gerard’s bed, stumbling towards the narrow mirror hung up on the wall. He twists around and nearly wets himself. The tattoo has spread to cover the full expanse of his shoulder blades. It’s so much ink Frank barely knows where to look. He recognizes that there are images there, pictures, even words. But he also recognizes that he is freaking the fuck out and his vision is going slightly blurring.

Two hands seize his shoulders, yanking him away from his reflection. He’s shoved back onto the bed by Gerard, who instantly pulls his hands back with a hiss as Frank goes down.

Frank’s ass barely hits the mattress before he bounces up again. “What is it? Did you get bit again?”

Gerard is hunched over his hands. Frank takes a chance and tugs at his arms. Gerard reluctantly unwinds, revealing his palms as two bloody-black messes.

“Shit,” Frank hisses in sympathy. “You okay?”

Gerard flexes his hands experimentally. “Whatever you did, it’s definitely almost contagious. It’s _weird_.” To Frank’s slightly horrified ears it sounds more Gerard means _it’s_ _neat!_

“What do you mean ‘almost’?”

“I’m not getting pictures, but you’re definitely spreading the ink,” says Gerard. He rubs his palms against his jeans and Frank sees what he means. The ink smears off, but also doesn’t. Some of it seems to sink in Gerard's skin and stay.

“Fantastic. I’m a walking hickey. Any brilliant ideas?” 

“We’ll see.” Gerard gestures at the bed. “Lay down.”

Frank settles down on his stomach, folding his arms under his chin. Gerard is careful not to touch when he leans over him, though he brings his face close enough Frank shivers once more under his breath.

“I want to try a few things. Hold still.”

Frank holds still. Gerard leaves him on the bed for a few seconds before coming back with a collection of things he dumps next to Frank, before sitting down beside his hips.

What conspires next is a series of tests Frank largely tries to block from his memory. Most of Gerard’s tests involve vials of putrid smelling liquids or odd colored dusts that leave Frank both smelling disgusting and slightly muddy — much like Gerard’s room. Frank can tell by the wiggling under his skin that none of it is having any affect. He shouldn’t be able to _feel_ a tattoo like that, much less tell that it seems pissed. It wigs him out.

“How bad is it?” Frank asks, after Gerard lets out a long stream of cursing.

“None of the usual deadening agents are having an effect. I’m going to need to think about this more,” says Gerard. “You’ll need long sleeves tomorrow…and maybe a turtle neck.”

Frank drops his head onto the mattress. “Great.”

“You can borrow a scarf for your way home,” says Gerard, getting off the bed.

“What? Already?”

“It’s been five hours, Frank,” says Gerard. Frank had been having a really nice nap.

“You tease,” groans Frank, sitting up. “What happened to our sleepover?”

“Ask me again when you won’t leave ink stains all over my sheets.”

“What, really?”

Frank looks down. Sure enough, there are splashes of ink smeared onto Gerard’s comforter where his chest had been. He checks his own skin, sees the faint tracing of ink curving on his ribs, and casts his eyes to look at literally anything else. His gaze lands on Gerard digging through a wardrobe, palms black with ink.

When the other emerges, triumphant, with a striped scarf from his wardrobe, Frank catches one of Gerard’s hands and tugs him onto the bed.

“What about these?” he asks, turning Gerard’s palm to the light.

Gerard is curiously still and stiff. He freezes when Frank touches him, one knee on the bed, one foot still on the ground, awkward. He’s oddly warm. Frank was expecting his skin to be cool and lifeless, but it’s easy to feel the warmth of his blood in his hands. One little pinkie splays wider than the rest.

“How are you going to explain these?” Frank asks, when Gerard doesn’t say anything. “I don’t know if I can avoid touching everyone for the rest of my life. That would kind of suck.”

Gerard slowly lowers the rest of his weight onto the bed. “You’ll be okay,” he says. His neck shades a darker red.

Gerard is older than Frank, smarter too probably, but when he moves it’s like a fawn at prey. It makes Frank’s chest feel an odd rumble. He chases the emotion, taking the courage to push Gerard’s sleeve up his arm, exploring the slow fade of ink up his wrists.

Frank isn’t stupid. He can read the red of Gerard’s ears better than he can a street map. He traces his thumb up Gerard’s wrist, rubbing the stain and wonders.

“Do you think it will spread when you touch someone?” Frank asks.

Gerard’s shoulders rise. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” says Frank. “Just someone.”

Gerard’s voice is soft when he answers. “I don’t know,” he echoes. “Maybe.”

“Maybe you should try it.”

Gerard doesn’t say anything. Neither does Frank. He doesn’t know what he’s doing exactly—or, rather, he thinks he would know _exactly_ what he’s doing if this were anyone other than Gerard.

He takes the scarf when he leaves. Wraps it high up around his neck and mouth and breathes, just wondering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, let me know down below or on tumblr @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is short only because I had split it in two or else I was about to double the word count for the whole thing in just one chapter. That also means the next chapter is written and ready to go and clocks in at about 4k. So there's that good news.

“Are you fucking my brother?”

Milk rockets up Frank’s nose. Mikey Way arches an eyebrow and stares down at him, having appeared like a ghost out of nowhere. It’s lunch time and Frank is avoiding all of his friends in favor of getting as far away from the crowd as he can. He has no desire to let anyone see what’s happening under his many, many layers. Sneaking his food into the library had seemed like a solid bet until exactly this second.

Mikey Way is somehow both taller and tinier than his brother. Unlike with Gerard, Frank has actually shared a few classes with Mikey before. Frank doesn’t know much about him, except that he seems to know everybody without anybody really knowing him. Like his brother, Mikey has a reputation for his witchcraft. Seeing him appear out of fucking nowhere in the middle of the deserted library is not a good sign.

“What?” Frank wipes a dribble of milk from his nose. “No, seriously. What the fuck, dude?”

Mikey pulls out a seat opposite Frank and perches. His expression is impenetrable. Really, no one with that flat of hair should have had the right to look so intimidating.

Mikey points at the coil of black and gray striped fabric wrapped tightly around Frank’s neck.

“That’s Gee’s scarf.”

Frank blanches, because _of course_ Mikey would recognize it. He was a dude that cared about his fashion, as questionable as his own often was. But Frank couldn’t exactly say that he’d woken up to a fucking scorpion high sitting just under his jaw this morning and freaked out.

Mikey is studying him with a tilted head, body tense all through his shoulders.

“You weren’t in fifth period yesterday.”

“Um. Yeah?”

“Mom got a call that Gee ditched. He wouldn’t say why.”

Mikey's eyes are narrow but huge behind his glasses. It’s like having a staring contest through magnifying glasses. Frank is the ant on the wrong side.

Frank stalls, looking for cover. “So…?”

“So, I think you’re either fucking my brother or fucking _with_ him. Which way is it, Frank?”

Ah, shit.

“Listen, Mikey. You’ve got the wrong-”

“You’ll tell me the truth, right Frank?”

That’s a fucking weird thing to say. Frank squints his eyes, feeling almost light-headed under Mikey’s persistent stare.

“O-Of course,” he stammers.

“You want to be honest,” Mikey affirms, voice set low and hissing. It rumbles through the air like a promise, rolling right over Frank’s denials. “Of course you do. You don’t want to keep any _secrets_. No. Of course not.”

Secrets? Mikey says it like it’s a dirty word. Frank frowns. He feels dissected under Mikey’s stare. There’s a brown spot in one of Mikey’s eyes. Frank feels caught by it.

What were they talking about? Secrets?

Frank shakes his head. No. No he doesn’t want any of those.

No.

No?

No. Of course not. Frank shakes his head again, confused. Why would he lie? Mikey is just looking out of his brother. Frank can tell by his eyes he is a good person, a good friend. Frank can tell him. Of course he can.

“I...I don’t know how to make it stop,” Frank admits, frowning.

Mikey’s eyes are large and worried as he leans forward. Compassionate. He’s such a good brother. “Make what stop, Frankie? Come on. You can tell me.”

Of course he can. Frank can’t explain why he feels so nervous about it.

“I, uh, well _we…_ ”

“You and Gerard?” prompts Mikey.

Frank nods his head, smiling, grateful for the help. “Yeah. Yeah, me and Gerard. Well, I asked him to—”

“Mikey!”

Frank jumps. His knee slams against the table. He blinks.

Oh god, his eyes are burning. Frank blinks rapidly, squinting against the blur in his eyes as Gerard marches towards their table. His head throbs. He thinks he might throw up.

It’s only when Mikey pulls away that Frank realizes they’d been leaning toward each other across the table. Frank has no idea when that happened. Has no idea what just happened.

Gerard moves towards them with an edge of mania. He doesn’t even glance at Frank, which is sort of annoying. Frank has been trying to track down the fucker all morning with no success.

The Way brothers share a conversation of looks as Gerard reaches the table, neither of them seeming impressed with the other. It’s frightening, almost, the way their energy seems to fill the room and clash. Frank leans back in his chair and focuses on steady breathing.

It seems as though Mikey loses the silent argument. His lips twist as he looks up at his brother. 

“You were supposed to be in the art room.”

“You could have just asked me.”

Mikey shrugs. “I found Frank first.”

He stands up and Franks is struck by how casually he does it. As if Frank is not half-panting at the table, still reeling from whatever the fuck just happened. He takes off without a backward glance.

Frank frowns at his back. He looks to Gerard for an explanation, but Gerard is a study in tension. Frank expects Gerard to relax once the argument with his brother is over, but if anything his spine tightens. He turns to Frank reluctantly.

“Hey, man.” Frank sits up and finds himself fighting back a sudden dizzy spell. He swallows down a groan and shakes his head. He pushes through it, aiming a grin at Gerard. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been busy.”

Frank kicks out a chair. “You wanna sit down?”

“I should go find Mikey.”

Considering Mikey just left and Frank is the one with the pressing scorpion neck problem, that response makes absolutely zero sense.

“Can you not?” Frank asks. He gestures at himself. “This thing is sort of spreading to places I’d rather it didn’t. Namely, towards my fucking face. I don’t suppose you got an epiphanies last night on how to fix it?”

Gerard shakes his head. “I’ve got to go. Mikey’s not happy.” He hesitates though and _finally_ looks at Frank. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

“Like, about the—the _you-know-what_ magic? He doesn’t know?” Frank had always thought the Way brothers lived in each other’s pockets.

Gerard sighs, waves a splayed hand through the air. “No. No that’s fine. I’m glad got here in time.” He licks his lips, pushing black strands behind an ear. “Listen, you might want to keep your head down for the rest of the day. Mikey doesn’t like spreading lies, but he’s really pissed.”

Frank doesn’t really get what they’re talking about here. Or why exactly Mikey is mad at him. Shouldn’t he want his brother to get laid? Not that Frank has any intention of fucking Gerard. Or, well, he hadn’t. Not really. Not in anything beyond a faint _what-if_ scenario that is suddenly threatening to sprout claws and dig in.

Frank shakes his head again, erases his brain like it is a bad drawing and plants a big sign before that tangle of thoughts. Beware to all that enter here. Danger lies ahead.

He comes back to the easier part of what Gerard was saying. “Do I look like the kind of guy that usually hangs out in the library?”

“I guess not. “ Gerard grins slightly, before sobering again. “Sorry about Mikey. He smelled you on my bed last night and sort of freaked. I don’t have a lot of people over.”

“I’m sorry. _Smelled_ me?”

“Yeah. I know. Sorry. I gotta go.”

“Gerard!”

Frank stands, catching up just as Gerard reaches the end of the shelves. Oh, standing is a bad, bad idea. Frank blinks against the sudden spots across his vision. It doesn’t stop him from seeing Gerard step back quickly as Frank reaches for him, looking down at Frank’s hands with wide-eyes.

Right. No touching the ink. Frank looks down at the floor, breathes through the dizziness. He shoves his hands back into his pockets, hunching. “It hasn’t spread there yet.”

“What do you need?” Gerard says, looking towards the door.

“Jesus, will you just hold on a second?” Frank is aware that he sounds desperate. He is. But he twerks his lips and tacks on, “At least tell me we can meet after school. I don’t think a scarf is gonna cut it tomorrow.”

Gerard appears torn. His eyes flicker to the direction Mikey left again, before flicking back to Frank. “Not at my place. Mikey is too suspicious of you as it is. He thinks I’ve been hiding you from him. He doesn’t like secrets.”

Beware, reads the sign following that thought. Frank pushes aside the spark that idea leaves in his stomach. Priorities. Also—he cannot afford to piss off not just one, but two _witches_.

“So my house?” he says. “Lemme write down my address real quick. Hold on.”

He digs around in his pocket, but the pen he pulls out is dead. He shakes it, but Gerard is already stepping away.

“No time. Just lie low today. And sorry.”

“What?” Frank asks, but when he looks up Gerard is already gone.

It’s an ominous message.

Frank doesn’t understand at first. Not until he enters fifth period and Mikey Way catches his attention. Never once breaking eye contact, Mikey whispers something into the ear of the girl sitting next to him who turns to look at Frank in shock.

Frank feels something like dread drop into the stomach. At the same time he looks down and sees the first hint of ink peaking out on his wrists. He shoves his hands into his sleeves, crosses his arms, and sinks down in his chair.

It’s like watching a bad sneeze spread. Frank likes to think that he’s a pretty open book. He’s never been too quiet about his fuck ups in the past, but at the same time few people actually cared to pay his follies any attention before.

By the end of the day, none of this is true. Rumors of him missing weeks of school for mono and getting shot down not once but twice because of his height and getting his ass kicked by some girl's boyfriend last year are all circulating by the time the last bell rings. He hears about his bad health, his worse trips, the embarrassing things he did in middle school he hoped were forgotten.

None of rumors are even lies, even if some parts are decontextualized or skewed. That makes it that much worse because Frank can’t even deny it. It isn’t like what he’d done was exactly a secret before, his life just hadn’t been up for wide-scale public consumption.

Frank is exhausted. He’s been dodging questions and concerned looks from his friends all day. Hambone and Shaun look ready to hunt him down and sit on him by the last bell, but Frank just gives them the slip. By the time he gets home, Frank is sure he’s getting sick, still partly dizzy and emotionally stripped bare. He collapses onto his bed, kicking his shoes off and burying his face in his pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, please let me know! You can also find me @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


	4. Chapter 4

“Frankie? Oh, baby, are you feeling sick again?”

Frank just barely has the wherewithal to pull on his hood when the door to his room opens. His room is shaded dusky gold. Smells of garlic and butter sweep in as his mom comes inside. 

He ducks under the hand she reaches for his forehead.

“I’ve got a headache,” he grunts, praying that his hoodie is covering everything. He finds he isn’t even lying when he sits up and his temples throb. She strokes the back of his head through his hood.

“Want me to get the Tylenol?”

“Maybe just turn off the light?”

“Sure. You feeling up for a friend? There’s someone at the door. Black hair? I didn’t catch his name.”

Gerard. Finally. Frank pushes the blankets off his lap and surges to his feet. And yep, he sways a little bit as the world seems to go tipsy for a moment. He catches himself before his mom can see.

“No. No, it’s okay. I need to talk to him.”

Downstairs, Gerard lurks like a thief near the front door, hood pulled over his eyes and hands jammed into his hoodie. He’s staring at a picture of Frank and his grandfather on the wall, but looks up quickly when Frank comes down. He waits until Frank’s mom disappears back into the kitchen before shaking his hood off and opening his mouth.

“You look like shit.”

“That’s just my outsides matching my insides.” Frank leans hard against the bannister. He finds he’s too tired to be charming. “Come up. We’ve gotta talk.”

It isn’t strange to lead Gerard into his bedroom. Frank’s got friends, much as he’s been avoiding them this week, and is used to sharing his space. It’s only awkward because Gerard is awkward and stands around craning his neck like he’ll find something besides the bed to sit on if he just looks hard enough.

Frank rolls his eyes and tosses himself on the floor. “Close the door. And I fucking hope you’ve got some ideas this time.”

“Kind of,” Gerard mumbles as he follows Frank’s command and shuts the door. He sinks to the floor criss-crossed, sitting a good three feet away from Frank. Frank doesn’t have to be that close to see that Gerard’s ears are already red.

Maybe fucking around with Gerard the last time they were alone wasn’t the best idea, Frank thinks, watching Gerard pull his backpack into his lap like a shield. Mikey certainly seemed to think so. Then again, Frank doesn’t have that much experience flirting with people that don’t immediately respond by shoving him against the next hard surface. Seeing the nervous way Gerard—the great spooky witch of their high school—holds himself feels a bit like stepping into the Atlantic in winter, scary and thrilling all at once.

“So, um,” Gerard begins, drawing on the zipper of his backpack. “I want to try a few things.”

“You need to see it?” Frank guesses, already peeling out of his sweatshirt. He can’t help but look down as he does it, freezing when he sees letters inked onto his fingers. Oh god, his _mom_ had just been in here. What if she _saw?_

“What does it say?” asks Gerard, leaning closer.

“What the fuck does it matter?”

Frank shoves his hands into his armpits and feels his jaw work. He’s cold without his sweatshirt—exposed. He gets up and turns the lock on his door. When he goes to sit down again though, the idea of sitting still makes him itchy. He snatches up his sweatshirt and fishes for the cigarettes in his pocket, then crosses the room to his window to light up. Normally he’d sit on the windowsill and blow the smoke out, but he’s too paranoid that the neighbors might see him. He settles onto the floor underneath it and ignores Gerard when he hesitantly scoots closer.

“Want one?” Frank asks, holding out his pack.

Gerard takes a cigarette, his other hand holding a notebook and pen. Frank doesn’t miss the careful way he avoids touching Frank’s skin.

“I want to make a catalogue,” Gerard explains, gesturing with the notebook. His cigarette lights the moment he bring it to his crooked lips. Frank rolls his eyes and tosses his useless lighter on the bed.

“Why?”

“It could mean something. At the very least, it will help us track the spread.”

“I just want it gone, man.”

Gerard nods. He’s got his hair tucked behind his ears, but it keeps falling into his face when he looks down at his notebook. “I know you do. The designs could tell us whether you’re still actively influencing the spell or if it’s something else at work. Like the writing on your knuckles. That’s a stylized font, not your handwriting. Why is the spell choosing that? That’s what I want to know.”

“Huh,” Frank grunts. It’s an idea anyway.

He looks out the window and smokes and listens to the sound of Gerard’s pen on paper. The nicotine is making his nausea worse, but at least his nerves aren’t buzzing anymore.

After a few minutes, the cigarette gives him enough bravery to hold out his hands and actually look—look in the way he’s been avoiding since the moment he woke up inked. He stares down at his hands and ignores the grumble from Gerard as he moves. His left hand is dominated by a bow and three arrows, barbed wire around his knuckles and a broken heart between his thumb and forefinger. His right is much the same, but webbing in place of the heart and a heart in place of the bow. Even his fingers aren’t spared from ink. One set of letters is nonsense to him, but the second makes his breath catch.

“It’s my birthday,” he says, surprised.

Gerard squints up from his notebook. “What? Today?”

“No, look, my birthday is on Halloween.” Frank holds out his hands, which despite all the smoking are shaking again. Gerard straightens up.

“Your first tattoo was a jack o’lantern,” he recalls. “That’s at least two with the same theme. Have you noticed any others?”

Frank shakes his head quickly. He doesn’t want to admit he’s avoided looking. He’s remembering something else. “No, no. You don’t get it. I was singing Happy Birthday when I was doing the spell. Like to myself. It was stupid. I didn’t think to mention it before.”

Gerard lowers his notebook slowly. “You were what? _Why_?”

“I don’t know,” Frank says, hunching. “It’s not like your instructions had a verbal component.”

Judging by the way Gerard’s gapes at him, Frank has just said something very stupid. “You didn’t think _chanting over blood magic_ was going to change it?”

“Um, maybe?”

“ _Maybe_!”

Frank winces; pretends he doesn’t notice that his windows just rattled. “But this is a good thing, right? Like, maybe that was really stupid of me. I don’t know. I’m not a fucking magical genius. But if that’s all I fucked up then you can fix it, right?”

“Oh sure.” Ash scatters across the air was Gerard tosses his hands up. “Of course I know how chanting a decades-old life celebration _hymn_ is going to affect it. Of course I know that. Of fucking course.”

“Yeah, see when you say it like that…”

Gerard practically snarls at him. He violently flips to a new page in his notebook. “Take your clothes off. I need to see everything.” 

“Um.”

“Just—shut up. Just do it.”

Frank does it. Strips out of his t-shirt and tries not to feel awkward when Gerard commands him to lay flat on the floor. He props one arm under his head so he can keep on smoking, trying not to fidget as Gerard looks down at him and scribbles.

“What are you doing?” Frank asks.

“Documenting the rest of them,” Gerard replies tightly. “I told you, a catalogue will help us. Especially now that we know that you sang the goddamn Happy Birthday song to a blood ritual.”

Frank quiets down. He finds himself growing self-conscious. Not because his shirt is off and Gerard is staring down at him like he’s an insect on display, but more because of how absolutely idiotic he feels right now.

Look, Frank knows he’s not a magically talented guy. He _fine_ with that. Not a lot of people are on the Ways’ level. That’s obvious. But the way Gerard is mumbling about it makes him feel like it’s not just that Gerard is smart, but that Frank is a moron.

It doesn’t help that Gerard keeps pointing down at him and asking him to actually _look_ at the tattoos and explain. It’s a conversation that seems to always seems to sounds like:

“What’s that?”

“I dunno. Looks like a spider to me.”

“And what does that _mean?_ ”

“How should I know?”

“It’s on _your_ skin.”

It is not helping Frank feel any smarter. And truthfully, Frank doesn’t understand why the ink on his skin is what it is. The more he allows himself to look, he does admit that he likes the look of everything he sees, even if Gerard wrinkles his nose at some of the larger pieces, especially the admittedly embarrassing tramp stamp they find when he turns over. If it wasn’t for the fact that Frank is sixteen and in _so-much-trouble_ he might not even mind all the ink.

He’s reminded of just how much trouble he’s in when Gerard takes a deep breath and says, “Pants too.”

Frank pushes his chest off the floor. “What now?”

Gerard’s face is red. His eyes are on the ceiling. “We’re done with your upper body now. I need to see…oh, screw you!”

Frank can’t help it. He’s giggling. It’s easy not to be nervous when Gerard looks embarrassed enough for the both of them.

“I’m sorry,” Frank manages between his giggles. “You’re just so fucking red, man.”

“I hate you,” Gerard complains, turning even redder. “You’re a little shit and I could just leave right now and fuck you.”

“And fuck me? No—wait, wait, don’t get up!”

Frank scrambles up to his knees and raises his hands at Gerard’s glare. The witch settles reluctantly back to the floor as Frank tries valiantly to restrain his amusement.

“Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t resist.” Frank fumbles with the button on his jeans before shucking them off. And okay. Maybe he is slightly embarrassed to be standing in his boxers in front of Gerard. He sits down to see if that will help (it does, marginally) and tugs off his socks for good measure too.

There is goddamn writing on his toes. His fucking toes.

At least Gerard doesn’t ask him to lay down again. Frank thinks that would be too much for both of them. As it is, they don’t say much except for when Gerard asks Frank to move, shifting his body around until Gerard has viewed the full 360.

Well, _almost_ the full thing.

“No,” says Frank, when Gerard opens his mouth. “No way.”

“You could just tell me,” Gerard grumbles. “I’m not going to look.”

“Yeah, well, neither am I. My dick is now officially Bigfoot, got it? It’s a mystery.”

“You _wish_ your dick was Bigfoot.”

“What was that?”

Long story short, Frank gets to keep his boxers.

By the end of Gerard’s catalogue they wind up leaning against the side of Frank’s bed, pointing at different tattoos and debating what they mean, or sometimes just how cool it is or not. There’s a noodle on his leg that Gerard seems particularly fixated on.

“Why a noodle though? That doesn’t have anything to do with the other motifs.”

“I dunno. I think it’s kind of rad. And get the fuck out of here with that motif bullshit. This isn’t English.”

“I didn’t figure you as that religious either, but you’ve got all this imagery. Also, do you really like Frankenstein that much?”

“Let me guess. You’re more of a Dracula fan yourself.”

Gerard grins. He has a crooked mouth and tiny teeth and looks a lot younger when he smiles.

Frank smiles back. He isn’t ignorant of the fact that Gerard is sitting barely a foot from him now, loose and relaxed in a way Frank hasn’t seen before.

And—listen, Gerard is still just _interesting_ to look at. His hair is long and box-black and greasy and keeps flopping around his forehead in big swoopy bangs. He’s soft and dark and sort of twisted, spine hunched, fingers splayed, nose like a tiny knife. Like with his tattoos, Frank keeps finding new things to look at, now that he’s letting himself look. And he admits that he is _looking_.

It dawns on Frank that if this were a movie this is the part of the screenplay that he would lean in for the kiss. His room is still that hazy shade of dusky gold. All the awkwardness at the start has worn off. Gerard looks like a real person sitting against his bed with his silly little smile. There isn’t anything scary about him. Frank’s in his fucking boxers, for Christ’s sake!

Gerard’s expression is open and bright. His eyes are skinny from the way he’s smiling at Frank, like they’re finally speaking the same language.

Frank carefully toes past the danger signs in his mind and smiles back.

“I’m not sorry I’m an idiot,” Frank says.

“You’re not an idiot,” says Gerard. It’s polite, even if it isn’t true.

“No, I am. I’m bad at magic. Terrible in fact,” Frank insists. “I’m not like you. That stuff never really made much sense to me. But I’m not sad I’m bad at it. I never have been, but now I think I’m actually happy about it.”

Gerard’s smile is faintly puzzled now. “Okay,” he says. “I don’t get you, but okay.”

Frank shrugs. “That’s fine.” He leans forward, shortening the space between them until Gerard’s eyes loom wide and huge in his vision. Gerard doesn’t pull away. He looks startled, a little scared maybe, but he stays right where he is.

“Just ask me why,” Frank says softly.

Gerard is equally quiet. “Why what?”

“Why I’m happy I’m bad at magic.”

And Frank can see that Gerard knows what’s coming. His pupils are impossibly dark, huge and focused. Gerard makes a move like he wants to fidget, hands coming up and then down again. He holds very still.

“Okay. Why?”

Frank kisses him.

It’s short. Just a press of closed lips against closed lips. It’s gentler than any of the emotions Frank’s been feeling recently. He doesn’t surge forward and neither does Gerard, but Frank still feels a tingle of _something_ spark between them before he pulls back and hunts for Gerard’s reaction.

Gerard’s eyes are open. He never closed them. He’s looking at Frank like he’s just swallowed the moon and isn’t sure what to make of it. He’s also looking at Frank like he’s not quite sure whether he’s supposed to laugh, like Frank just made a joke and he isn’t sure which side of it he’s on.

It’s not exactly what Frank was hoping for, but Gerard is still right there. He hasn’t gone anywhere. He wants to reach out to take Gerard’s hand, but remembers Gerard’s flinch from the last time the ink had smeared off. He can’t keep looking at the nervous way Gerard is staring at him though and touch is Frank’s first language. He keeps his hands to himself but tips forward, rubbing his forehead against Gerard’s shoulder instead.

“I'm happy because I finally got to meet you,” Frank explains into Gerard’s skin.

He can feel the shaky way Gerard is breathing underneath him. His hair is soft where is brushes Frank’s face. Then Gerard shifts and Frank pulls back, hoping he’ll look up and see a different look on Gerard’s face.

He doesn’t. Gerard still looks at him like he isn’t sure what to do with him, like Frank hasn’t just made his intentions perfectly clear.

“You…” Gerard trails off. He looks, well, scared isn’t a word Frank think applies to a person like Gerard. Nervous maybe. Definitely uncertain. Finally, he licks his lips and whispers, “What do you mean ‘finally’?”

Frank shrugs. He wants to lean forward again—surely a second kiss would clear things up instantly—but this seems like the kind of conversation that requires eye contact. Besides, Gerard is subtly leaning away now and Frank is thinking perhaps it's time he remembers not to push a witch.

“I’ve been looking at you,” he admits. He thinks of the long, dark shadow Gerard has cast over his high school years and grins to himself. He’s finally peaked a glimpse behind the curtain and it’s nothing like he expected. “You’re sort of impossible not to notice. I was scared to approach you though. You’re sort of—don’t take this the wrong way, but you can be sort of intimidating.”

“Intimidating,” Gerard repeats.

“No, hey.” Frank reaches out, thinks better of it, and shoves his hands under his knees. Gerard doesn’t notice. He’s staring at his shoes. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“It is though.” Gerard’s voice is small.

“Not to me.” Frank shakes his head. He frowns at himself. “Maybe intimidating is the wrong word. I don’t know. I think you’re interesting.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah.” Frank nods quickly, taking the glance Gerard gives him as a sign of encouragement. “Like, I look at you and there’s always more to see. You’re not like other people. I mean, you _are_ , but also—it’s like you’re more, you know? There’s more stuff happening under your skin. You’re different.”

Gerard just looks at him. There’s another crooked little smile coming to his mouth, but it’s not the bright thing Frank remembers. “Different. Right.”

Nothing that is coming out of Frank’s mouth is coming out the right way. He scrubs a hand through his hair in frustration. The movement seems to startle Gerard who pulls back even more.

“I’m saying this wrong,” Frank groans. “What I’m just _trying_ to say is—”

“Frankie!”

His mom’s call cracks like a shot in the dark. Frank’s voice cuts abruptly off. He looks at Gerard. The witch looks caught red-handed with his fingers in the cookie jar.

Her footsteps approach.

“Dinner’s ready. Is your friend staying to eat?”

For a moment, Frank and Gerard both stare at each other frozen. Then, the door knob jiggles.

“Shit,” mutters Frank. “Shit shit shit.”

“Frank? Why is this door locked?”

“ _One second, Mom!”_

He flings himself towards his pants, hopping on one foot to shove his legs in. Across the room, Gerard shoves his things into his backpack and stands.

“Frank, open the door. You had better not be smoking in there again!”

Frank yanks on his sweatshirt without bothering for anything underneath. He zips it to the throat and reaches for the lock. A hand seizes his arm.

“Your neck!” Gerard hisses, pointing.

_Fuck._

Frank’s eyes jump around the room. Gerard sees the scarf before him. With a flick of his fingers it flies off the bed. He takes it and wraps it around Frank’s neck while Frank bounces anxiously, resisting the urge to pull at it.

“Is it good?” he whispers.

“You’re good.” Gerard’s eyes are dark as he steps away. Frank doesn’t have the time to decipher that that look means. “Watch your hands.”

Frank shoves his sleeves over his hands and opens the door.

His mom appears anything but impressed on the other side. She narrows her eyes at them both, before taking an exaggerated sniff. She rounds on Frank.

“You are _sixteen_ , Frank. We’ve talked about this. You are way too young to be smoking!”

“It was just one, Mom. I swear.”

“I don’t care. It shouldn’t be any. Give me the rest. Now.”

She holds her hand out expectantly. Heart in his ears, Frank carefully fishes his pack out of his pocket, keeping a tight grip on his sleeves as he quickly hands it over. His mom doesn’t look at his hands though. She rattles the box, frowning.

“Just one?”

“One today,” he amends and that’s even mostly truthful.

His mom narrows her eyes again. She’s been catching him smoking since was fourteen, however, so he isn’t surprised when she drops it.

That doesn’t stop her from looking around the room suspicious again. “You know better than to lock your door with company.”

“Right, Mom. Sorry. It was just habit. Gerard and I were just, uh, studying.”

She stares at him flatly. Her eyes flicker pointedly down to the scarf around his neck. Frank winces. Right. Studying. Sure.

When his mom finally turns on Gerard, Frank wonders exactly what she sees. He wonders which word she would use to describe him. Does she notices the way his blacks are a little darker than everyone else’s? Maybe she can smell the must of dirt and dead things in his clothes, but does she taste the ozone in his skin? He knows she can see he’s _magic_ in a way that most people aren’t. Her expression sharpens slightly, not in suspicion exactly, but in recognition.

Gerard seems to see it too. He composes his face into a careful stillness. He stops shifting, growing motionless and… _intent_ is the only word. It’s like he’s waiting for something.

The sudden change almost makes him look more dangerous, except that there’s a wideness to his eyes that reminds Frank of a cornered animal. It’s only when Frank sees them all go away that he realizes he’s somehow become accustomed to a crooked tilt in Gerard’s mouth and the way he throws his hands around and the flush of red on his ears. It’s disconcerting to see all those signs of personhood get quietly tucked away.

It’s scary. It’s like Frank has blinked and suddenly the boy he just kissed is gone and replace by this figure cloaked in darkness and danger and otherness. There’s a pressure in the air around Gerard and it’s heavy. Something in the back of Frank’s mind start keening at him to step away. Hair rises on the back of his neck. Frank’s heart thrums in his chest.

He was right. Gerard _is_ intimidating. And Frank is still _interested_.

For the first time Frank wonders if the shroud of threat and mystery Gerard wears around is a choice or a reaction to something.

Luckily, Frank’s mom is the best mom in the world. Even when she’s suspicious, she seems to handle Gerard’s presence with much more grace than Frank ever did at first.

“Are you staying for dinner, Gerard?” Her eyes are a little wide, but her tone is perfectly polite. “Frank’s friends are always welcome.”

“Oh.” Gerard blinks at her. The darkness around him recedes at the movement. It doesn’t disappear, far from it, but he looks smaller somehow. He looks at Frank, who shrugs. Like his mom, he keeps his voice even.

“Up to you, man. We could keep on, um, working after.”

Frank would really like that actually. He would really fucking love to finish their talk, erase the nervous way Gerard is looking at him still. Dig down into the root of it. But Gerard glances at the window and slouches. Frank looks too and sees that the sun has slipped under the skyline.

“I think I have to go.”

His mom frowns. “Do you need a ride home? It’s getting late.”

“I’m okay,” Gerard denies.

“Well, walk your guest to the door at least, Frank. Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”

Gerard shakes his head. The walk to the door is stilted with Frank’s mom hovering behind them, though she does eventually leave them alone once they step onto the front porch.

“Sure you can’t stay?” Frank asks, wishing he would.

“I told Mikey I was just going to a movie. I don’t want to rile him up anymore.”

“We can work on this tomorrow though, right?” he asks, dread and regret growing the longer it takes Gerard to respond. 

Finally, after what seems like forever but is probably only a few agonizing seconds, Gerard nods.

“We can’t talk at school. You could meet me after? At my place?”

“What about your brother?”

Gerard shakes his head. “Mikey’s got work. He won’t be home.”

Frank finally feels like he can exhale. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. That sounds great, man. It’s a date.”

Gerard grows still again. It’s amazing to Frank how a face he know can blush so red can also be so pale. Gerard’s eyes stand out dark and shiny from his face when he stares at Frank.

When he’s like this, quiet and serious, Frank is still not 100% percent sure Gerard can’t read his thoughts. He pushes forward his intentions the best he can, just in case.

 _I’m not intimidated by you_ , he tries to say with his eyes, _I would really like you to believe me and maybe let me kiss me you again because I was really not done with that part._

And Gerard smiles, just slightly, quick as the scent of flowers on a breeze.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like it, please let me know. You can also come talk to me on tumblr @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings have been updated. Check the tags before reading.

Frank’s eyes are squeezed shut.

“Not today,” he whispers. “Please, just give me one more day.”

The bathroom fan whirls above him. Outside, a garbage truck roars down the street. Frank can barely hear it over the rabbit thudding of his own heartbeat.

No one answers him. Frank counts slowly back from three and opens his eyes.

The skull tattoo stares back at him.

It lays over his face like someone has taken an x-ray to his head. Frank shakes his head. The skull shudders back at him. It’s wide-eyed and ghoulish, scary and scared. Shadows circle his eyes and cast down his cheeks, too dark to be anything but unnatural. Even his mouth is darkened, ink spilling above and below his lips to give an impression of teeth.

It’s ugly. It’s really fucking ugly. Frank wants to dig into his own skin and _rip_.

He grips the edge of the sink, panic fluttering on quick, tiny inhales. His mom putters down the hall. He can hear the sounds of her getting ready for work. Frank can’t hide _this_. The tattoo isn’t darkened all the way yet, but it’s _there_. He can’t hide it. It’s on his fucking _face._

He needs to think. The fan is too loud in his ears. He can’t hear himself over it. He bats at the light switch, squeezing his eyes shut again as the bathroom falls into quiet darkness.

He needs a plan. Frank can’t go to school like this. Hell, he can’t even go downstairs like this. He’s screwed. He’s really fucking screwed.

He needs Gerard.

The next few minutes aren’t too clear in Frank’s mind. He knows he snuck downstairs, waiting until he was sure his mom was busy before loudly calling out goodbye, slamming the front door, and rushing back upstairs. He can recall the vague terror of hiding in his room, waiting for the sounds of his mom’s car leaving for work; then the confusion that came with sneaking into her bathroom and smearing her too-dark make up over his skin.

These memories play like a scratched record. The timeline is all wonky. By the time he steps downstairs again, hood drawn up and head low, it feels like hours have passed. The clock on the stove reads 9:13. He isn’t sure where he’s going. Gerard is at school. Frank can’t go there. He walks into the kitchen and stares at the contents of the fridge. He doesn’t touch anything. He ambles to the front door again and stands there, waiting.

Eventually, he gets tired of standing. He goes back up to his room, locks his door, and lays down for a bit. When he sits up again midday has gone by and his head is fogged up. Maybe he really is getting sick. He knows he didn’t dream anything. He isn’t even sure he really slept.

He goes back into the bathroom and squints at the darkening skull. Caking on another layer of his mom’s foundation doesn’t cover it, not really, but he leaves it on, pulls up his hood, and exits his house.

Just before he goes, he wraps Gerard’s scarf around his neck. Showing his neck doesn’t really matter anymore, but he can still bury his chin in it and hide.

The Way house looks like every other New Jersey home on the block. Frank gets lost circling the same streets until he finds it.

Frank doesn’t own a watch. He has no clue what time it is, but there’s a silver Honda in the driveway that Frank doesn’t know how to deal with. He can’t exactly knock on the front door.

He sneaks around the back.

It doesn’t take him long to spot a low window to the basement. When he kneels down beside it he can’t see anything passed the drawn curtains, but when he presses on the class, it opens inward without a hitch. Score.

For once very grateful for his small size, Frank pushes the window open as far as it will go and wiggles in, feet first. He steps on something wobbly that collapses underneath him. He clings to the windowsill as hard as he can until he can squeeze his torso through, getting enough reach to step on something more solid. When his head finally makes it, he finds himself peering into the familiar dark of Gerard’s basement room. He’s standing on a desk, a pile of books scattered at his feet, his shoes crunching several papers. In a matter of seconds, he scrambles down, trying not to make any noise. Then he’s standing alone in the middle of Gerard’s room.

He turns a slow circle, squinting as his eyes adjust. The mess and smell of the room is the same. Frank doesn’t see any evidence that Gerard is home from school yet, though he thinks he can hear someone talking upstairs.

He starts to go to listen when something on the desk catches his eye. There, underneath the books he’d knocked over, is a familiar notebook. It’s laying open, half hidden. From just the corner peeking out Frank recognizes the hand drawn out on the page.

It’s a picture of Frank.

Actually, it’s multiple pictures of Frank. Frank shoves aside the other books and thumbs through the notebook. The beginning pages are all notes and little sketches, diagrams of different rituals, doodles in the corners.

It changes as he reaches the back. There’s one page that’s just labeled with his name. Beneath it he can recognize a rough draft of the ritual Gerard had given him, looking far more complex and messy than Frank recognizes. When he flips the page, he finds the original instructions that Gerard had given to him, now mended back into his book, looking far more sleek in comparison even with the tiny drawing of Pogo in the corner.

It’s the last few pages that draw Frank’s attention however. Frank recognizes his hands first. They’re drawn palms down and splayed, tattoos sketched in quick but precise detail. He turns one page, then another and another. There’s him sitting up, blowing smoke out the window of his own bedroom. Another shows Frank laid out on the floor, forehead on his arms, back like a map on display. There’s an embarrassingly intimate drawing of just his legs. Then his feet.

It’s the catalogue Gerard had been working on. It’s very clearly not _just_ a catalogue.

Certainly, his tattoos are on prominent display. Yet as he flips through it’s clear that the notebook is so much more than that. There’s Frank’s smile captured around a cigarette, the scar on his knee from when he was seven, his fucking crooked toe on his left foot. There’s no reason for these details. No reason except to act as proof that Gerard was _looking_ too.

He flips to the last page with a hungry curiosity. He finds yet another picture of himself, but this one is different. First, it’s was obviously done _not_ in Frank’s own bedroom. There’s more detail, like Gerard had more time to put into it. Second, Gerard’s included himself on the page. It’s just the two of them. They’re standing outside of Frank’s house, the porch light casting their shadows in long lines down the street. Frank’s wearing Gerard’s scarf and Gerard is holding Frank’s hands and for the life of him Frank can’t remember whether or not this actually happened or if the awkwardness between them had been too great.

Gerard had been frightened, Frank remembers. Frank had put his foot into his mouth ( _again)_ and things had been rocky. Yet the Gerard and Frank in this picture are mirror images. Both lean forward. Both are smiling. It’s nothing short of a prelude to a kiss.

“I knew it,” Frank breathes.

He can’t stop smiling. Quickly, he straightens the desk the way he found it and places the notebook open with that page on display. He wishes he had a camera so he could take a picture. Maybe Gerard will let him keep it when he’s done.

Frank bounces, unable to contain his sudden burst of energy. It’s proof that Gerard’s been thinking about him, thinking about holding his hands. Frank worried after his mouth sewage yesterday, if maybe the all tension between them all was in his own head. Maybe Gerard hadn’t really wanted to be kissed at all. This notebook is proof enough that Gerard feels it too.

He can’t wait for Gerard to get home. He paces the length of the basement. Should he just kiss him? No, no, Frank should still apologize. Once all the word vomit from yesterday has been clean up, _then_ he can kiss him.

There’s a creak at the top of the stairs. The door opens and light pours into the basement. Frank twirls, grinning, as big, clunky boots appear on the stairway.

“Hey! So don’t freak out, but—”

A blast of energy slams into him.

Frank ricochets off the desk. Books and drawings tumble off just as Frank smacks into the floor. There’s a pop in his wrist. It sounds stupidly loud in Frank’s ears. His arm floods with a white hot heat as the rest of body comes slamming down on his left hand all at once.

Footsteps surge down the stairs. Mikey Way appears with both arms raised out in front of him. He stops when he catches sight of Frank rolling around on the ground. His pale face screws up.

“I fucking knew it!”

Frank just barely scrambles to his knees, cradling his wrist, when Mikey strides towards him, both arms up.

“Wait! Just wait a second!” Frank pleads, terrified of the murderous look in Mikey’s eyes. He backs up to a wall, feeling poster pins dig into his back. He cradles his left arm. “Mikey, just calm down, man. It’s not what you think.”

That same dark aura that blankets Gerard covers his brother as well. Frank can feel it pressing down one every inch of him. The shadows of the basement bleed blacker.

“I told you to stop messing with my brother.” Mikey gets right up in Frank’s face. His eyes are like glass, sharp enough to cut. Frank remembers the last time and hides from them, hunching over his injured wrist and not looking above Mikey’s collarbone.

“I’m not messing with him,” Frank denies. It’s as good as yelling at the sky. “I swear to God, Mikey. I’m not messing with Gerard.”

Mikey scoffs. “Please,” he sneers.

He steps in even closer, uncomfortably close. Frank hears it when he breathes in deep. It’s creepy as fuck. Mikey breathes with his mouth open, like a snake or something, sharp canines suddenly making Frank fear that the rumors had it all wrong about which Way was the vampire.

Mikey’s nose wrinkles. An expression of supreme disgust floods his thin face. “I can _smell_ him on you.”

“It’s called being friends,” snaps Frank. He tries and fails to put space between him and Mikey. It’s impossible. Mikey won’t let him even edge along the wall. “Stop being such an overprotective psycho and listen to me when I tell you there is nothing going on with me and Gerard.”

“You’re a _liar_ ,” Mikey hisses. In rage, his lips thin but his eyes go huge. “You think I can’t tell?”

He grabs hold of Frank’s chin and shoves his face up. His eyes burn through Frank. Searching. Demanding. Frank knows what he wants and clamps his eyes shut, only for them to snap open as Mikey’s fingers smear into the makeup on his face.

Frank sees the moment Mikey notices there’s something _wrong_ about Frank’s face. His eyebrows furrow, the anger in his face diminishing in confusion. “What the hell?”

Frank jerks his head out of Mikey’s grip, hunching down. “Get the fuck out of my face, man.”

“Is this makeup?”

Frank knees him in the stomach. It’s a terrible idea. Mikey’s magic responds before he even makes contact and he’s _slammed_ back against the wall.

Frank can’t help the little scream that escapes him as his wrist is abruptly jarred. Mikey steps back looking startled. The magic releases him and Frank drops to his knees, heat radiating from his fingers to his shoulder as he cradles his wrist to his chest.

“What the fuck?” demands Mikey, but his tone is uncertain. He’s not touching Frank, not anymore, but that doesn’t stop Frank from wanting to put as much space as possible between them. He shoves himself to his feet and takes several steps away.

“You snapped my fucking wrist, you asshole,” Frank growls. He can barely think over the pain in his arm. It drowns out the fear and hesitation. “That’s what you get when you fucking attack someone with magic. Jesus Christ!”

Mikey’s eyes widen. “I just _pushed_ you. It should have barely crossed your wards.”

“I don’t have a fucking ward, you goddamn stupid _witch!_ ”

Frank curses a blue streak, emboldened only by the uncertain look on Mikey’s face. Mikey Way doesn’t move as Frank stumbles towards the stairs. No way is he going back out the window. And he needs out of this basement. Now.

Unfortunately, Mikey’s uncertainty doesn’t last long. “Wait,” he says, striding after Frank.

Frank spins around quickly, wishing his wrist wasn’t fucked, wishing Mikey was just a regular dude, wishing this was any sort of fight he could win.

“What?” he snaps.

Mikey’s eyes are narrowing again. He crosses his arms, pinning Frank with a look that says he’s decided the conversation is not over. “You’re still lying to me.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Frank demands. He takes another step towards the stairs, wondering if he can’t just make a break and run. “You just _broke_ my fucking _wrist_!”

Mikey takes another step forward. “You’re lying. You both are. You and Gee _._ ”

Frank would really, really like it if Mikey stopped coming towards him. He backs up even more, but there isn’t much room to go. “Have you ever considered that not everybody want you all up in their business. Jesus, you sound like a little kid, Mikey. People lie all the time.”

Mikey shakes his head. “Not Gerard. Not to me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Frank asks. “Cause it kind of sounds like he does though.”

Mikey’s head cocks. He’s studying Frank like he’s something Mikey has never seen before. “It’s something about you. He’s obsessed with you or something.”

“He’s obsessed?” Frank can’t help but laugh. He jerks his chin at Mikey, looking pointedly around the room. “Why do you even care so much? Jesus, you weren’t even supposed to be home. Gerard said you had work. Get it? I know that because he fucking invited me over.”

Mikey’s mouth opens. His eyes are feverishly bright. “I knew it. You _are_ fucking him!”

“No!”

Mikey steps closer. It closes the last bit of distance Frank has managed to keep between them. He breathes in deeply and Frank swears it’s like he’s tasting the air. His eyes come back on Frank. His expression is grim.“You’re not lying, but you’re not telling the truth either.”

Frank glares. He just wants to leave. He edges towards the stairs again. “That doesn’t even make sense, bro.”

“You want him.” Mikey’s eyes are golden behind his glasses. Frank forgot he wasn’t supposed to look and quickly glances down. “You’re not good for him. I know about you, Frank. How many people have you been with, exactly? Can you even keep track? They were practically crawling out of the bleachers to tell me.”

“That’s really fucking creepy, dude,” Frank shoots back, staring at Mikey’s chin. He sees it when Mikey tilts his head and smirks.

“I didn’t meet many repeat customers though. What’s the problem, Frank? Have trouble measuring up? I wonder what they’ll tell me when I ask them.”

“Are you—” Frank can’t believe what he’s hearing. “I’m sorry, are you slut shaming me right now?”

Mikey shrugs. “I’m just telling you what you already know. A lot of people regret you, Frank. My brother is not going to be one of them.”

Frank is so sick of this. “Newsflash asshole, your brother gets to make his own decisions. If he wants to keep seeing me, he will.”

“No,” says Mikey slowly, contemplative. “He won’t.”

Mikey walks towards him. Frank backs up, but it’s hard. He can’t move that fast without hurting his arm. It isn’t long before Frank is backed once more to a wall, staring at Mikey’s clunky boots as they step closer.

“ _Frank_.”

Frank recognizes that voice. Mikey’s voice is dropped smooth and low, polished like a stone. It ebbs against his ears as gentle and deadly as the ocean. Frank squeezes his eyes shut.

“ _Frank, look at me please.”_

Frank gets it know. He understands why Gerard had looked so unnerved after his last encounter with Mikey. That voice is just in front of Frank now. Frank feels the compulsion to open his eyes beating through his head like waves upon the shore.

“Get away from me! Get the fuck off me, man!”

He lashes out blindly, kicking with his feet but hitting nothing. He shakes his head, thudding it against the wall behind him, trying to drown out the noise.

“ _Look at me, Frank. What are you fighting for? Just open your eyes. That’s it._ Look at me! _”_

Frank’s eyes open.

Mikey is right in front of his face. His eyes loom, spin, churn a golden brown and—

Frank forgets.

Frank thinks he’s supposed to be doing something, but he can’t quite remember. He’s heart is racing and he isn’t sure why.

He frowns.

“ _Frank, listen to me please.”_

Oh, right. Mikey is telling him something important. Something Frank needs to hear. Frank needs to listen. He should smile to show he’s listening. He nods.

Mikey Way smiles back at him.

“ _I want you to stay away from Gerard, Frank. That’s all you have to do. You’re not going to talk to him. You’re not even going to look at him. You’re going to make sure my brother never sees you again. That so easy to do, right?”_

Frank nods.

The compulsion takes hold.

Mikey steps away from Frank. His eyes are a normal brown. Frank blinks. A fog lifts. He stares at Mikey, horrified.

“What did you do?” he whispers. His ears are ringing. He’s so fucking dizzy there’s vomit on his tongue. “Mikey, what the fuck did you just do?”

“You should leave now,” Mikey says softly. He isn’t smiling, there’s something almost regretful about him, but he’s firm. “Gerard will be home soon.”

“Fuck you! I—!”

The words disappear in Frank’s throat. He doesn’t mean for them too. He means to _scream_ them, but it’s like his voice is just gone. Mikey shakes his head.

“Too late. He must be home. Don’t try to yell. It won’t work. Gerard can’t hear you.”

“You fucking _asshole_ ,” Frank hisses. He stalks forward, intending to bury his fist in Mikey’s impassive face. He raises his arm, only to cry out as his wrist loses its support.

“Oh. Right,” says Mikey, offhand. He strides across the basement ignoring the way Frank shrinks from him and grabs a bottle off the bookshelf. “This should make your wrist heal faster, I think. Bodies are more Gee’s department. Sorry. I really didn’t mean for that to hurt you.”

“I don’t want your fucking magic.”

Mikey rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Just _take it._ ”

Frank takes the bottle.

There’s a noise above them. Frank and Mikey both still, Mikey cocking his head to the side before looking back to Frank.

“Time to go, Frank.”

“I’m not—I’m not _leaving,_ you fucking psychopath,” Frank chokes out. But his voice won’t rise above a whisper and already there is something pulling at him. Telling him to get away. To get out.

A voice sounds out upstairs. _“Mikey? Is that you? I thought you had work._ ”

Frank’s stomach clenches. He opens his mouth. If he just screams—

Nothing comes out.

Fuck!

In a fit of frustration, Frank charges towards the stairs. Fine. He’ll just make Gerard see what his brother has done.

“ _Are you in the basement?”_

His foot freezes before it hits the first step.

His body walks itself back.

Back past Mikey’s wide, knowing eyes.

He lifts himself up on the desk, wrist screaming, and opens the window.

Mikey gazes at him steadily.

“Goodbye, Frank.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, you can come scream at me about Mikey in the comments below. :D


	6. Chapter 6

Frank doesn’t remember the walk home.

He is lying on his bed, face-down, watching the ink darken on his hands. His door is locked. His mom thinks he’s sick, maybe. She hasn’t come up to check on him since he screamed at her through the door to go away.

His wrist is red and swollen. Frank thinks it’s sprained. It’s agony the second he tries to move it. Frank prays it’s not broken. He can’t go to a doctor. He just can’t deal with that right now.

Either way, it’s painful. The stupid fucking bottle Mikey had _forced_ him to take is in pieces somewhere on the sidewalk between their houses. He’d rather tear his own arm off than accept help from that asshole.

His room is silent, still. Frank’s smoking through all of his emergency cigarettes and still feels cold. The world spins in hazy circles around him, tossing Frank like a rag doll.

He feels sick. He feels really fucking sick.

Sometime, hours earlier, Gerard had called.

It had still be early afternoon. Frank had just gotten home when he caught the tail end of the phone ringing. He’d lurched for it, a man possessed, opened his mouth and—

Nothing.

Not a single fucking sound had come out of his mouth.

“Um, hello? I’m calling for Frank Iero?”

Gerard’s shyness forced his voice high over the speaker. Frank had squeezed his eyes shut. Gerard even pronounced his last name fucking right. He didn’t even know Gerard _knew_ his last name.

He had breathed heavily into the receiver. His tongue had shaped the words. He’d felt them burning in the back of his throat.

_I’m here. This is Frank. Don’t hang up please. Oh god, please don’t hang up._

Nothing came out.

Gerard’s had voice come through again, a little more unsure. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

_Yes!_

In a fit of brilliance, he had tried to hum. That wasn’t not a _word_ , right? The sound had lodged in his throat.

The silence stretched. Frank hadn’t been able to hang up. He couldn’t stand the tentative nerves in Gerard’s words.

If Gerard could have just hear him breathing maybe. If he could have just make some _sound_.

He’d turned to smash the phone against the wall.

His hand stopped mid air _._

He couldn’t even _scream._

“Hello?”

Frank clutched the phone to his ear. _Yes! Yes, I’m here!_

A click. Dial tone.

_Crack!_

The phone cracked against the wall.

The dizziness lingers well into the next day. Frank doesn’t even try to get up. He ignores his mom when she knocks on his door—gentle at first, then with increasing irritation. He knows it’s just a matter of time before she calls his dad and brings down wrath upon his sullenness and then—

And then—

Frank isn’t thinking about the future right now. Or maybe that’s all he’s thinking about.

He washed off the makeup in the middle of the night, throwing up in the toilet when just standing had made the whole room spin. The skull has darkened to black over his face. He can barely recognize himself underneath all the ink.

It’s like he can feel the prickle of the tattoo needle. His skin is in a constant state of _too-hot too-cold_. He swears he can feel ink spreading beneath his scalp, under his hair. He lays on his bed and crams metal through his headphones into his brain.

Between one album and the next he finds a parachute on his palm.

The next time he smokes a cigarette, the tips of his fingers are black. Just all black. Like there’s no more room left for the ink to spread.

He tugs his sleeves down and goes back to bed.

He dreams are as shaky as his waking life.

He’s caught on a carnival ride that spins and spins and spins and there’s no exit sign and Frank can’t move. It’s all black inside and heavy. Frank can’t lift his head from the weight of it. He can’t move at all and the rides is full of people but Frank can’t see their faces, just hears their barking laughter. There’s someone right next to him and their hands are touching but Frank can’t even turn his head to look. The gravity is punishing. Frank skull is being crushed and it’s going to pop like a fat tick full of black blood and it’s going to smear on the seats until gravity crushes it away.

He wakes to a ringing in his head.

Rolling out of bed, he lands on his hands and knees. His left arm buckles in a burst of white-hot pain and Frank bites his tongue and gags. Bitter spit and bile comes up and Frank stares at the clear-yellow color of it and prays the specks of black he sees are just spots in his vision.

The ringing continues. It’s the doorbell.

Downstairs, his mom says loud and clear, “Oh, it’s you! Honey, don’t you know it’s too late to be walking outside on your own?”

Frank rolls onto his ass, holding his breath, grasping his wrist. The number on his bedside alarm reads _10:23pm_. It takes him a minute to realize an entire day has passed. Saturday is almost over and Friday is long gone.

He can’t hear the words being exchanged downstairs. Not from behind the closed door of his room. He crawls to the door, pressing his ear to the wood. Hears nothing but the sound of his own heart.

His right hand gets as far as the doorknob before he stops.

The tattoos are gone. Overwritten. The ink has run out of room to draw and has simply scribbled itself into every margin. It’s brutal. Uneven. Ugly.

It’s a fucking _curse_. His mom is downstairs. He can’t just walk out.

Except—

Except didn’t Frank already decide the future was fucked anyway? Isn’t it just a matter of time before his door is forced open? Frank can’t hide away forever.

The doorknob is slick in his sweaty hand. He leaves a smear of ink as he turns it quietly, holding his breath and sneaking out into the hallway. As soon as he inches towards the staircase the murmuring resolves itself into actual words.

“—supposed to meet up yesterday. I tried calling but—”

“Now’s really not a good time, honey.”

“If I could just talk to him. Just for a minute.”

“Frank isn’t feeling well. He’s sleeping right now.”

“I’ll be quick, I promise. It’s just that the project we’re working on is really important.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t think—”

“ _Please_ , Mrs. Iero. I promise I won’t take long.”

There’s silence for a second. Frank risks peeking his head around the corner. He sees his mom first, standing at the half-open doorway in the soft pants she wears to bed. He can’t see beyond her, but he imagines Gerard’s pale, waxy face leaning out of the shadows.

He looks just in the time to see his mom open the door a fraction more.

“Alright. Come in. You can have until I finish calling a cab for you to get home.”

“Oh, no. You really don’t have to do that, Mrs. Iero.”

“I’m a mother, honey. It’s what I do.”

As the voices move indoors, Frank scrambles back from the corner. He scurries back into his room nearly vibrating. He closes the door, pressing his hands and face against it as he listens for the creak of the stairs announcing Gerard.

There’s shuffling in the hallway outside. A second later, a quiet knock vibrates the door beneath his cheek.

“Frank? Frank, it’s me.”

Frank’s grinning so hard his face actually hurts. He reaches for the doorknob and—

With a _click_ the door locks.

Frank stares at his own hand his horror.

“Frank?” Gerard calls a little louder. “It’s Gerard. Let me in.”

It’s the spell.

Whatever Mikey Way did to him is still in effect. He knew that. He _knew_ that. How could he just forget?

Frank screws up his face, feeling his throat work. Gerard is just outside the door. Frank can practically touch him through the wood.

He just needs to think. If he is going to fight off the spell, now is the time. He doesn’t need to do much—just make _some_ kind of noise. Any kind.

He tries to feel the magic in his head, but it is nothing like his dreams. There is no weight on his thoughts. If he could just get a grip on whatever magic Mikey had used, he could push against it, fight through it, but there is nothing. Frank can think all he wants, it’s his _body_ that chooses to move.

Just like his body braces against the door when the knob jiggles.

“Frank, open the door. We don’t have a lot of time.”

Frank can’t.

His mouth is open but he’s not even sure his breath is making noise. The wood shudders when Gerard knocks on it again, loud and insistent. He’s going to disturb Frank’s mom. She’s going to come up and see and then Gerard will be gone.

“Please unlock the door, Frank.” The doorknob works again. “Why are you hiding? It’s _me_.”

That’s the problem.

Frank strains his ears as the Gerard falls silent on the other side. He can hear him breathing heavily. It triggers Frank’s memory. That’s right. Maybe Gerard can do the same freaky smelling thing Mikey does. Frank just wishes he knew how to _use_ that.

When Gerard speaks again, he’s quiet, uncertain. It sounds like Gerard did on the phone, like he’s not sure he’s talking to the person he thinks he is.

“I know you’re there, Frank. Why are you—why did you lock the door?”

_I didn’t mean to. I swear, I’m not doing this on purpose._

Frank doesn’t dare to breathe. He pushes the thoughts towards Gerard. If there was a ever a time for Frank to be right, please let it be now. He just needs Gerard to hear him.

When Gerard speaks again, his reticence is gone.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he says, “but I’m coming in.”

Frank doesn’t understand until he hears the click of the lock. Magic. That’s the only way.

Frank barely has time to widen his eyes before he finds his whole body braced against the door, holding it shut as Gerard tries to push his way in.

His wrist screams. Frank opens his mouth and fails to.

“I—Frank?”

Gerard’s voice cracks. Gerard _knows_ he’s there. Frank squeezes his eyes shut and dares him to push harder.

There’s another shove against the door.

Frank’s body pushes back, hard.

Inside his head, he’s screaming, begging for more. Gerard is holding back. It’s just a goddamn door.

There’s a sudden silence on the other side. Frank can hear Gerard panting, but he can’t—he can’t do _anything_.

“Why are you—Frank, _please_. It’s _me_.”

Frank knows. Tears leak out of his eyes as he presses his forehead against the door. _He knows_. 

_Don’t leave. Please, don’t leave, Gerard_.

But Gerard doesn’t hear him. Frank is an idiot. Of course, Gerard can’t hear him. Mikey had made sure of that.

Frank can hear him though, even when Gerard’s next words come out soft and halting.

“If you—If you changed your mind, I’m—that’s okay. I promise I’m not _mad._ You don’t have to hide from me.”

There’s a pregnant pause on the other side. Frank knows Gerard is waiting on the other side. He imagines Gerard’s small, hopeful eyes staring at the door, the inches between them are practically miles.

More likely, Gerard’s face is as shattered as his voice sounds. Frank feels the sharp edges of him like their rattling around inside his throat.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Gerard says finally. “I didn’t mean to.”

It’s quiet for a long moment. Frank closes his mouth around those shards and bleeds.

Then, very quietly, Frank hears the creak of Gerard shuffling away from the door.

Frank knows the second Gerard leaves his house.

His voice breaks open, a terrible scream bubbling up in his throat and escaping in frantic tears. He collapses against his bedroom door, sobbing like he hasn’t since was a little kid. He hears his mother hurrying up the stairs, asking what’s wrong, what happened.

He doesn’t know what to tell her. He’s words are free again, but there’s nothing to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frank's spreading tattoos are inspired by the [Brutal Black Project](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9X6nSXwcas). Take a look if you're not afraid of needles!
> 
> Also, shoutout to [throwupsparkles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/throwupsparkles/pseuds/throwupsparkles) for being my writing buddy this month as I attempt to kick nano's butt. You should just go read ALL of her amazing fics — and contemplate how meatballs would solve a certain zombie problem.


	7. Chapter 7

Eventually, the hurricane subsides.

When Frank surfaces from his fit the stars are out and his house is quiet. He knows it’s probably late at night or perhaps very early in the morning. Coming back into the here and now is not a pleasant experience. His face is dry, but his skin is itchy. His head is wrung out and empty.

Distantly, he remembers his mom going to bed. He knows she called his dad. He doesn’t know when his dad is coming though. Probably soon. His mom had sounded scared.

Frank is running out of time.

He’s running out of skin.

Once he picks himself off of the floor he finds himself wracked with a morbid curiosity. He takes off his shirt and pants and sees how far the magic has spread up his limbs. The spell isn’t neat and tidy anymore. The ink scribbles out the previous drawings like an angry child. Frank doesn’t think even Gerard could find something pretty in it. The ink slashes across his skin in uneven, angry lines. It is brutal in its conquest.

It isn’t the only thing that’s angry.

Just the thought of Mikey Way has Frank chewing through his cheek, the tang of blood on his tongue. Frank thinks probably Gerard won’t want to talk to him again. Not after last night. Not that Frank _can_ talk to him.

Frank’s wrist hurts. He’s scared it’s broken. The little boy inside him begs to go and tell his mom. To curl up in her arms and confess all his sins and rest his head in her lap and let her fix it. He can’t though. It’s just another thing on the long list of things Frank can’t have.

Frank sort of wishes he could just be erased. He doesn’t mean it in a kill himself way. He wouldn’t do that to his mom. He just sort of wants to disappear; to become invisible and let all of the stress he is under fall right through him and away.

He’s been so, so stupid.

Sleeping is as close to death as Frank knows how to get. He climbs into his unmade bed and buries his face beneath the sheets.

Sleep doesn’t come for him.

Frank closes his eyes, but his room is too warm and too quiet. It makes his thoughts rattle around his head as loud and hot as bullets. 

When he pushes off his covers he finds his sheets smeared with black splotches. He had gone to bed half naked. After a week of hiding in his jacket and beneath his dark layers, he’d forgotten the ink bled.

He strips the bed, but doesn’t risk leaving his room for the washer. The sky is still black but it must be closer to morning now. The dirty sheets get kicked into his closet so he doesn’t have to look at them. Then he pulls back on his old stand-by hoodie. It’s black by design and it’s got a large front pocket Frank can rest his left wrist. If it looks any different after a week against his skin, Frank can’t tell.

He doesn’t want to stain his uncovered mattress so he sits at his desk instead. There’s a pen in his hoodie pocket that he clicks incessantly. He’s run out of smokes and needs something to do with his hands.

An idea comes to him.

It’s a very simple idea, but it stops his breath.

He’s thinking about Gerard’s notebook. He’s wondering about the limits of Mikey Way’s curse. It had stopped him from talking, from yelling, even from throwing things.

Could it stop him from this?

Frank hasn’t touched his school work all week. He finds his english notebook under his bed and flips to a blank page. His hands leave messy fingerprints on the pages. So much for his notes.

He tries again. He pinches just the corner of one page and turns it slow enough to avoid a mess.

He writes:

 _Dear Gerard_ ,

Frank stares at the two words blankly. Could it be this simple?

His palm has left a half-moon print on the center of the page. The formal address doesn’t sound a thing like him. Frank can’t even remember the last time he wrote a letter. Probably it was back in elementary school to the jolly old elf himself.

He tries again.

 _Gerard_ ,

That’s better. He taps the pen against the pages, the words beginning to bubble. He doesn’t try to stop them. His hand flies in chicken-scratch across the page.

_…so sorry. Please don’t stop reading this…_

_…heard when you called. I didn’t mean to…_

_…magic be angry? I think you’d know…_

_…not sure what will happen when I run out of…_

_…don’t even know if I can get this letter to you, but I’m going to try. I promise I’m going to try…_

_…please don’t give up on me…_

When morning finally dawns, Frank is still cramped over his desk, scribbling. He hasn’t slept. He’s only stopped when his hand started screaming at him, resting his head on the pages of his notebook without closing his eyes until the cramping faded.

He’s going to need a new notebook for school. His english one is wrecked.

There are corpses of letters bleeding on the floor. The pages have been crumbled and stabbed and beaten into the fetal position, torn out of his notebook and tossed as trash.

The final letter is probably too long and melodramatic. Frank honestly can’t tell anymore. He’d peeled it out of his notebook with pinched fingers and carefully folded it up to protect the words within.

He didn’t stop there. Once he wrote and rewrote and rewrote his letter, there was still so much more to say. Even as his words _to_ Gerard dried up, Frank found his words _about_ Gerard had just begun.

He’s always been something of a lyric hoarder, jotting down his biggest embarrassments and fears in stupid metaphors he swears will one day be of use. He’s written poems before too. Messy things he hates almost as soon as he finishes them, hiding them away from the light of day but secretly returning to them when all the lights are out. Writing about Gerard is no different.

It’s cathartic in a way. It’s also draining. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t register the shifting of the light and the first scrapes of waking noises until his door swings open with a gentle click.

Frank tumbles out of his chair in shock, gaping up at his mom and dad.

In the doorway, his parents freeze. His dad holds a screwdriver and one loosened half of Frank’s doorknob. His mom holds her own hands, twisting and twisting them as she peers into his room.

Frank’s mind is a blank slate of terror. He has no way to cover himself. The damage is already done. He hadn’t even gotten to _choose_ when to end his life. He hadn’t even _noticed_ it coming.

Frank knows it’s already too late when he screams, “What the fuck! Get out!”

His dad frowns severely at him and his mom draws back. Frank scrambles to pull his hood over his head, though it’s pointless now. He braces for the explosion.

“Watch your language,” his dad says gruffly. “You’re in enough trouble already.”

His mom steps neatly around his father. Her eyes narrow on his stripped bed. Her slippers crunch on the discarded drafts of his letters.

“Thank you, Frank,” she says, speaking to his dad—Frank Sr.—as he finished unscrewing the doorknob from the frame. She looks down at Frank and her mouth is pinched and tired. “Don’t look at me like that, Frankie. You don’t get to freak out on me like that and not have consequences. I almost had your father leave work and drive out here last night. Do you know how worried I was?”

“I should have,” grunts Frank Sr. straightening up and putting the screwdriver in his back pocket. “You don’t get to scare your mom and me like that. You especially don’t get to lock your mom out when she asks you to open the door.”

“I’m…sorry?” says Frank.

He doesn’t get it. His parents are way too composed. His face is a fucking nightmare. They should be—they should have _screamed_ at the sight of him, at the giant ghoulish _skull_ on his face—if even that hasn’t been all scribbled out yet. Frank’s heart is beating fast enough he can hear it, but his parents are just standing there looking down on him, disapproving but calm.

“We’re going to talk about this. Sorry isn’t good enough here, son.” His mom steps closer, wading through even more papers with a growing frown. “What happened to your room? Oh, Frankie, what’s that on your face?”

 _Fuck_.

Frank flinches away from the hand reaching for his face. He scrambles to his feet, wincing as his left arm is jostled in his pocket.

“I’m sorry!” he blurts again, and he means it. He already knows he’s fucked up. Jesus, what even is the punishment for illegal blood magic gone array? What if they can’t even fix his face before they send him to juvie?

“I can explain,” he says quickly. “Please don’t freak out. It’s not that bad.”

“Freak out? Freak out! Are you kidding me? Frankie, look at your room! Look at your face! Did you get into _another_ fight at school?”

“I…What?”

Frank opens his eyes. His mom is irate. Her face has lost its still composure. Instead, there’s nothing but fire in her eyes as she flingers her hands out at the mess of Frank’s room.

“You promised me no more fights at school! When did this happen? Is this why that boy was over? He looked dangerous, Frankie. I don’t want you going with the wrong crowd.”

Frank straightens instinctively. “It’s not Gerard’s fault,” he says, because _like hell_ is he going to let Gerard take the blame for Frank’s stupid idea.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” his mom snaps. “You’re grounded. No more shows. No more movies. No more friends coming over in the middle of the night. And don’t think I didn’t hear about you skipping class either. Was that with this Gerard too?”

Frank doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t _get_ what’s happening right now.

“And this room!” continues his mom. “What happened to your sheets? And your clothes! We have a laundry room for a reason!”

“This place is a pigsty,” his dad says, nodding along. He frowns at Frank from underneath his mustache. “Your mom tells me she caught you smoking again. We’ve talked about this, kid.”

Meanwhile, his mom has bent down and picked up on the papers from the floor and is scowling at it. “Jesus, Frankie, did you sneak a _girl_ in here last night or something? Is that what all this is about? This room is wrecked!”

“Mom!”

Frank rips the paper out of her hands. Guilt instantly eats at him when she jumps back, startled. He tries to make it better, glancing down at the page and seeing it’s just some scribbled lyrics—not a letter, _thank god!_

“Sorry, sorry—Those are private,” he says.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Oh, you want to talk about privacy, do you?” she says and begins outlining _exactly_ how long Frank is going to be doorknob-less in the future.

Frank couldn’t care less about the door.

He’s missing something. His mom hasn’t started crying the sight of him. His dad is just standing arms crossed near the door. They’re too busy being mad and scolding him to notice the gobsmacked expression on his face.

Frank slowly draws his hands out of his hoodie pocket. Just yesterday, they’d been completely black — scribbled in and terrible, like a kid had taken a black razor to his skin.

He looks down at his palms now and sees nothing his own pinkish skin.

He flips his hands over and his breath catches.

The ink is…not gone, but faded. He can see his own skin through it. His fingers aren’t black. Not even the tips.

The tattoos are still there, but there aren’t as many as before. The letters on his fingers are clear, but the heart in the center is just a bruise-like smudge and the wire between his knuckles is just gone.

It’s like he’d written on his hands in pen and then washed them. The ink is worn through and dim.

Frank lowers his hands and stares at the heaps of discarded papers all around him.

He sees his writing scribbled in black ink on the pages.

He remembers his sheets this morning, practically dripping with it. 

He thinks—

No. No, it couldn’t be that easy.

“Frankie? Frankie, are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, Mom. Just—hold on just a second.”

Frank steps around his parents, making for his mirror. He pulls down his hood and—

There’s his face. Mostly clean. He can still see the faint shadows of rings around his eyes and mouth, but it’s not—it’s not _startling_. It looks just like Frank’s mom had reacted. Like he’s been punched a few times and left bruised. People might see him and flinch in sympathy, but not one would see him and scream.

He can’t quite believe it. Surely— _surely—_ he and Gerard would have noticed this trick before.

A hand lands on his shoulder. Frank finds himself blinking back tears as his dad turns him around. He makes to rub his eyes, then hisses when he lifts the wrong hand. His left wrist pings that awful pain.

His dad immediately lets him go, face concerned under his stern facade. His mom is at his dad’s side the next instant, brows furrowed.

“Frankie, what’s wrong? Are you alright?”

Frank shakes his head. He’s smiling so hard his face hurts, even as it gets sticky wet with tears again. Somehow, his parents aren’t assured.

“I think I need a hospital,” he says.

“What!”

His mom drops her anger and comes swarming to him instantly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

His father frowns. “Lost the fight again, son?”

Frank shakes his head and doesn’t explain. He holds out his left arm and almost cries at the gentle way his mom takes it.

“Oh, Frankie. You should have told me.”

Frank just nods. She’s wrong, but it feels nice.

Within five minutes, Frank’s bundled up, iced, and in his father’s car. His mom sits in the backseat, cradling his wrist, asking him questions Frank doesn’t answer, peering into his face and stroking at his hair like he’s been shot.

Frank feels human for the first time in days. He can’t help but laugh when his mom pulls back her hand from his skin and complains that, “Drawing on yourself isn’t healthy!”

It’s that comment that sends him into hysterical giggles that don’t stop until long after they reach the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting closer to the end. A more thorough explanation of the tattoos should be up next, along with a certain letter. 
> 
> Remember that you can find me on tumblr @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com).
> 
> Also, [throwupsparkles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/throwupsparkles/pseuds/throwupsparkles) is doing this really awesome thing where she shouts out awesome fics at the end of each chapter. Her story [Do You Got Room for One More Troubled Soul?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25414603) has got to be my first recommendation. If you haven't been converted to Peterickey yet, that story will get you there.


	8. Chapter 8

“You can stay home an extra day if you need to.”

Frank warms at the undercurrent of worry on his mom’s face. It’s good just to be able to see her again, to stand in front of her and not feel his heart pounding or like he needs to hide.

“I’m fine, Mom.” He flaps his fancy new sling—probably negating all the work it’s doing to keep his wrist still—and smiles back. “Really, I’m good.”

Despite his strong words, Frank does stop by the bathroom two more times before he leaves for school. He checks his face in the mirror, but the skull is barely a smudge around his eyes. There’s a shadow on his neck that will probably shape up into the scorpion within the hour—hence the scarf he still wraps around is throat—but even his hands are slightly faded. Experimenting last night in the ER while his parents fell asleep in the waiting room had taught Frank a lot about the spell that he definitely should have figured out sooner.

For one, though _some_ ink would rub off on things like sheets and clothing, what the spell _really_ wanted was a place to live on with apparent meaning. On closer inspection, all the letters Frank had poured his heart into were slightly different when he’d come home from the hospital. Little doodles appeared in the corners of the pages, hearts and stars dotted the I’s, the letters had even gained a tendency for straightening themselves out of his terrible handwriting. Although the ink continues to spread under his skin seemingly without end, he’s at least learned he can drain it by channeling it onto the page. He’s been making little notes and drawings all morning.

The real letter sits in Frank’s backpack, carefully pressed into the pages of a textbook. He hopes—God, he really hopes it works. Which is why his smiles at his mom and kisses her on the cheek on his way out the door. If he can break one curse, who is to say he can’t break another?

Frank doesn’t know where Gerard’s locker is, but he _does_ know something about his schedule. They have band together, yes, but that’s in the afternoon. What’s more important is that Gerard has art sometime in the mornings before lunch.

Thanks to a ride from his dad, Frank arrives early to school. He attracts some attention, but not nearly as much as that horrific day last week when Mikey had let the rumor mill fly. Frank walks through the hallways relatively unharnessed, gaining no more than a few odd looks, and steps into the art room for the first time in his entire high school career.

The room is whiter than Frank was expecting, and the tables are low and lined with stools. Only one bulletin board displays any art work, but the loud pop of color is pleasing. Frank peeks around the room, trying to determine which of these tables Gerard is most likely to inhabit.

“Hey. You need something?”

A girl stands near the door behind Frank, black hair in low pigtails and a string of giant fake pearls around her neck. She’s altogether more than a little intimidating, but Frank remembers that he’s supposed to be charming and grins at her. “Hey, if I wanted to leave a letter for somebody think you could help me out?”

“That depends.” The girl shoulders her way inside and drops her bag off near the teacher’s desk. She’s definitely too young to be the teacher; she must be a TA or something. “What kind of letter? To who?”

“Gerard Way,” Frank says.

The girl’s eyes narrow. “What do you want from him?” Her glare is quite daunting underneath her sharply winged liner.

Frank smile fades uncertainly. “Nothing. I just want to give him something.”

“Uh huh.” She straightens up and walks back over to him. In her chunky heals, she towers over him by a good several inches. “And what are you expecting him to give you in return? Gerard’s a friend of mine, you know.”

It doesn’t take Frank long to realize he’s being threatened. Threatened with what, he’s not entirely sure, but the way this girl is looking at him reminds him that he’s already had his ass kicked once this past week.

He holds up his one good hand to plead. “Listen, Gerard’s my friend too. I’m just trying to talk to him.” He thinks about pulling out the letter from his backpack, but doesn’t want to risk it. He’s not convinced this girl won’t just shove it up his ass. He pulls the pen out of his hoodie pocket instead. “I just want to leave him a message, okay? Do you have a sticky note or something I could use?”

Her eyes inspect him steadily. Slowly, she backs down and steps away. “Yeah, alright. One note. Take the pad on the desk. Just don’t make a mess.”

Frank nods gratefully. He makes his way over to the teacher’s desk and finds the stack of post-it notes on top. Carefully scribbling out his message, mindful of the fact that he’s going to be leaving this in plain view of strangers, he asks, “So which of these desks is his?”

The girl just shakes her head and holds out her palm. “I’ll give it to him.”

Frank hesitates. He doesn’t love this, but the girl looks unyielding. He finally hands the note over, watching her eyes run over it and her brows raise.

“‘I figured it out. Can’t talk. Blame Mikey?’” she reads. She looks up at him incredulously. “Blame Mikey for what?”

Frank isn’t giving that one up. He shakes his head. “That’s private.”

The girl scoffs. “He won’t appreciate you calling out his brother,” she warns him, taking the note and folding it up into her pocket.

Frank just shrugs. “Here’s the big secret. I really think he might.”

Frank nicks the post-it notes and slips them into his pocket on the way out. He’s just rounding the corner towards his own home period, when he feels the curse ripple. His feet begin to walk faster of their own volition. Frank grins. That can only mean Gerard has arrived at school.

Frank’s leg rattles under his desk throughout his morning classes, but the rest of the world spins on sluggishly. He takes diligent notes. The ink on his hands which had darkened since he’d left his house that morning fades slowly again. The spell doesn’t seem to appreciate note taking very much, but he borrows a page from Gerard’s book and scribbles a series of progressively drunken ghosts into the margins of his page. These tipsy little dudes absorb a whole lot more of the ink. One even gains a cowboy had when he isn’t looking.

He’s learning. He’s figuring out the spell. Even if he and Gerard don’t find a complete solution, at least Frank won’t have to go into hiding for the rest of his life. He thinks it’s faintly ridiculous that he might have figured all of this out earlier if he’d just paid any attention at all in class last week instead of freaking out and immediately ditching school.

At lunch time, Frank sets off for the library, the one place he knows Gerard will go if he is looking for him. He sits in his usual chair and drums his fingers on the wood. Then, because he can, he draws a little scorpion into the corner of the table, accidentally giving it seven legs. It probably says something about him that he doesn’t know whether that is one too many or one too short for the creature.

Gerard never shows. Frank doesn’t even get a tingle from the curse about him coming near. It puts a damper on Frank’s mood as he shoves his stuff away and heads off for his next class, but he hasn’t given up yet. It’s possible the girl in the art room never passed on Frank’s note. It isn’t like she seemed to think he was all that trustworthy this morning.

The trickiest part of Frank’s day comes with band class. Ironically, this is the class Frank’s been looking forward to the most. It’s the one time of day he knows exactly where Gerard is going to be.

Unfortunately, just as he’s approaching the band room with a skip in his step he hits what seems to be an invisible wall.

“Mother _fucker!_ ”

It isn’t like Frank forgot about the curse. It was just that he was _hoping_ he could at least get into the classroom and leave his letter on Gerard’s seat before the witch got there. Of course, Gerard just has to be a massive nerd and get there early to class and mess everything up.

Frank stands outside the band room contemplating his options. For once, it doesn’t seem like he has any choice but to ditch. He knows his mom is going to be pissed. Maybe he can just go to the nurse’s office and complain about his arm.

It’s a good thought, but an even better one comes to him as he standing there thinking. He smells a whiff of smoke as a group of kids from the last class walk past him. It reminds Frank of exactly where he met Gerard for the very first time. Avoiding the windows, he slings around the back of the building.

The alley behind the band room is empty when Frank gets there. There are a few new cigarette butts on the ground and a few empty soda cans crumpled up near the wall. He gets out his post-it notes, when he stops, looking up again at the alley.

His eyes land on the wall which stands as a towering white blank slate before him.

Frank puts away his pen and draws out his sharpie. He takes off the cap and smiles.

“Frankie, someone’s on the phone for you!”

Frank springs off of his bed, barreling downstairs and into the kitchen. His mom holds out the phone, arms wets with dishes, but pulls it back when Frank reaches for it. “Five minutes, Frankie,” she warns. “You’re still grounded.”

Frank swallows and nods. He hesitates when she holds out the phone again, wiping his hand on his jeans before gingerly taking it. He takes a deep breath and tries, “Hello?”

The word comes out. Frank breathes out, not sure whether he’s disappointed or relieved. It’s not Gerard.

“Frank.”

That brief moment of respite evaporates as Mikey Way speaks. Frank’s fingers spasm around the hard plastic of the phone. He turns his back to his mom, walking as far the phone cord will let him.

“What do you want, fuckface?” Frank growls.

“I told you to leave him alone.” Mikey’s voice is pitched low and hissed, as if he too is trying not to be overheard. Frank wonders how far away he is from his brother, if maybe Gerard is just one room over or if he’s barricaded in his basement bedroom. Frank knows there’s no point in yelling, but god does he want to.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Frank says. “I’m sure you heard the rumors, but I had to to go the ER because of you.”

“I already said that was an accident,” sighs Mikey. “You don’t listen well, do you?”

Frank is so tired of this shit. “What do you want, Mikey? I doubt even you can curse me over the phone.” He hopes not anyway. Though with his mom in the same room he bets he could get the little shit in trouble if he tried.

Mikey’s harsh exhale crackles over the phone. “What do you think? I’m telling you—”

“To what? Stay away? Yeah, not gonna happen, bud. If your little spell didn’t work, did you really think a phone call would?”

Another harsh breath. “Why are you doing this?” demands Mikey. For a moment, he sounds almost as frustrated as Frank. “What do you even get out of it? You’re just making him miserable. He showed me your little note, you know. You’re just fucking with his head.”

Frank straightens. “Gerard got my note?” Hope leaps up, fluttering in Frank’s chest. He narrows in on Mikey’s anger. “So that’s why you’re so pissed. What? Did he yell at you? Maybe call _you_ the liar this time?”

“He’s not going to give you what you want,” snaps Mikey. “He’s not what you think he is. You’re just going to get hurt.”

“Stop. Just stop it. I’m not afraid of you _or_ your brother. Is that what this is? Why is it so hard for you to accept that I might actually just like Gerard?”

_“No one ever just likes him!”_ Frank jumps, looking quickly over his shoulder to see if his mom heard the yelling. She hasn’t. Mikey’s breathing shudders in his ear. When he speaks again, it’s with a noticeable effort. “You’re a liar, Frank. People _always_ want something. That’s what you people do.”

“You’re wrong,” Frank says simply, “and you’re going to have to do more than a scary phone call to stop me.”

He hangs up. His mom looks over at him. “Everything okay, Frankie?”

Frank nods and smiles. “Hey, do you think you could take me to school tomorrow? I’ve got something I need to do.”

The hallways are almost empty when his mom drops him off in the morning. Even most of the teachers’ lot is vacant as he hurries up the steps. The art room is locked, but that’s just fine. Frank starts there anyway, pulling out his stolen post-it notes and sticking the first one right on the window.

He draws the same bow and arrows that keeps appearing on his hand. It’s easy to do. He intentionally didn’t drain the ink beyond making sure his face was clear before he left for school.

For insurance’s sake, he leaves a collage of post-its up and down the hallway to the art room too, then makes his way into the depths of the school.

Frank might not know Gerard’s schedule, but he does know which teachers have senior classes. He starts with the advanced magic classrooms and works his way backwards. As he goes, he slowly drains the ink from his hands. He moves up to scribbling down imitations of the tattoos on his upper arms and chest.

The scissors from his neck he leaves in an English classroom.

The guns on his back on a note near the gym.

The birds on his belly find their way to the band room.

He runs out of sticky notes about the same time the hallways begin to fill. People are already talking—finding them on the walls and pointing.

It doesn’t really matter to Frank if they pull them off. Frank just needs one note to make it to Gerard. One note to make him really, truly curious enough to ask Mikey the right questions.

And then finally Mikey spots the one student he’s been hoping to see all morning. Ray Toro’s bushy head sticks up out of the crowd like a beacon. He spots Frank before Frank reaches him, and although the two of them have never met, Ray stops, folds his arms, and waits.

Frank has known Ray Toro is Gerard’s friend since the beginning. It’s one of the main reasons that Frank even had the courage to approach the witch in the first place. Everything Frank’s ever heard about Ray tells him he’s a good person. He hopes this time the rumors are true.

Frank plants himself in front of Ray’s crossed arms and looks up steadily. “Hey, I’m Frank.”

“I know,” says Ray, looking down on him. He’s a very tall man and Frank is very small, but he doesn’t look angry, just neutral.

He says that he knows who Frank is, which means maybe, just maybe, Gerard has been talking about him.

“I have a message for Gerard.”

Ray looks around. There are five post-it notes in this hallway alone. “Another one?”

Frank is a little surprised Ray guessed correctly. He must have heard about Frank’s note from yesterday.

Frank shakes his head. “This one is different.” He drops his backpack off his shoulder and carefully digs into his bag. The letter he’s been saving comes out smooth and crisp from inside his textbook. He hesitates for just a second, before holding it out.

“Can you get this to him?”

“What is it?”

“Read it, if you want. Just promise me that you’ll make sure he gets it.”

Ray takes the letter. Frank bounces on his feet as he waits for him to unfold it, but after a minute Ray just tucks it into his pocket. He looks at Frank evenly and Frank wonders exactly what he thinks he knows.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ray says.

Frank smiles. “Just let Gerard know I’ll be waiting for him. He knows where to find me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very, very close to the end now. Reminder that you can find on tumblr me @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com).
> 
> And your fic recommendation this week is an oldie but a goodie. Please enjoy [A Light to Burn All the Empires](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19081306) by [Arsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic).


	9. Chapter 9

Frank’s kicking his heels against the asphalt when he hears the band room door open. He’s on his feet in the next moment, palms tingling as he listens to footsteps step into the alley and then pause.

Frank doesn’t have to wonder what’s keeping them. The ink he’d poured into the wall yesterday had turned into a veritable mural overnight. It’s arresting. Yesterday, what had been left in the white plaster was nothing but pour imitations of his tattoos, lyrics to his favorite songs that cropped up in his head, unfinished lines from his poetry—anything and everything that Frank wanted out of himself and into the world. Today, he’d come back into the alley and found all of his unpolished ideas made sharp and clear through the magic of the ink. The black lines stretch now, well over his head, into a pure expanse of _Frank_ on the wall, full of all the things he has to say.

He knows Gerard can read it. He hopes he’s got the message through.

There’s a pressure in Frank’s body urging him to run away that tells him it is Gerard right around the corner. If Frank didn’t know just from that, the way Gerard’s voice calls out, “Frank?” so hesitantly clues him in.

Mikey’s spell urges Frank to flee, but Frank’s already covered that. He leans against the corner at the end of the alley, keeping his limbs all out of sight. He’s not well hidden from the main campus, but he’s less than concerned about the security officers right now. His only priority is keeping his hands steady and out of view as he carefully holds his notebook up around the corner.

_I’m here_.

Gerard’s footsteps slap as he approaches. Frank actually sees Gerard’s shadow emerge from the shadow of the wall and stretch long across the pavement as he nears the end of the alley. Frank hurriedly lowers the notebook, adding a few more words that stop the shadow in its tracks once he thrusts the notebook back out.

_Don’t come around the corner. Can’t see you._

The shadow gets to the very edge of the corner, so close their shadows almost overlap. It’s close enough Frank can still hear him when Gerard breathes out, “You’re really here.”

There’s an awe in his voice that prickles the roof of Frank’s mouth. He shakes himself, lowering the notebook. He turns to a new page, watching the shadow shift as he hastily scribbles.

_I’m sorry for everything. I really didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?_

There’s a watery snort on the other side of the wall. Gerard’s shadow lifts a hand to its head, like he’s tugging on his hair. His words come out warbled. “Fuck. _Fuck_ , Frank. I can’t believe Mikey really did this. Are _you_ okay?”

Frank is not about to lay the angst of his past few days on Gerard’s feet. Not when none of what happened between him and Mikey is Gerard’s fault. Frank’s the one who had to listen to Gerard’s hope break as he stood outside of Frank’s bedroom door.

_I’m okay_ , he writes quickly. _Want to talk to you. Can you break the spell?_

“Fuck,” Gerard says again. His shadow shakes its head. “ _Jesus, Mikey_.” That last part is muttered obviously not for Frank’s ears. Frank’s stomach drops. He shakes the notebook, hoping for a better answer. The shadow straightens.

“Yeah, yeah, hold on a second. I just need to—” An odd thing happens to Gerard’s shadow. Frank doesn’t know how to explain it, except that it is sort of like watching the moon come out from behind a cloud, except in reverse. The darkness gets darker. The shadow _deepens_ , if that’s even the right word. The air just around the corner blows cool against Frank’s skin.

Gerard says, in a voice he’s never used before, “ _Come here, Frank_.”

Frank’s whole body goes rigid. Gerard’s words ache in a way Mikey’s alone didn’t. There’s nothing gentle about the way his magic seizes Frank’s limbs, nothing persuasive, not the least because it feels like Gerard’s words have thrown him up against the brick wall of Mikey’s magic.

Frank is panicked for a moment, unable to move as the spell holds his limbs hostage, but then Gerard says softly, in a voice Frank recognizes, “Trust me, Frank. I won’t hurt you. The compulsions work best when you want them too.”

Frank closes his eyes and trusts him. It isn’t hard.

The magic presses down on him as a bruise that rattles his bones. For a moment, it’s hard to breathe, to think over the rushing pressure in his ears, but then _something_ slips and gives way. Frank’s legs begin to move forward. He turns the corner and instantly feels his body get pulled into a crushing hug. His wrist is jostled between them, but he doesn’t care. He presses his face into Gerard’s jacket and lets the witch hold him.

“God, Frank,” whispers Gerard in his ear. He’s warm and shaky against Frank, despite the cool shadows all around them. Frank isn’t sure that he can move, so he doesn’t. He just trusts in Gerard and lets go.

After a minute of silence, fingers splay over his face. “ _Open your eyes, Frank_ ,” commands Gerard.

There’s another _shift_ in the curse as another piece of it slides off him. Frank’s eyes sliver open.

Gerard’s face is pale and taut inches from Frank’s own. He looks frightened in that same way he did on Frank’s front porch that night. His eyes are two dark caves Frank wants to crawl into. Frank remembers that words he wanted to say then, but didn’t. His good hand—moving on his own will!—reaches up and pulls Gerard in.

Gerard makes a noise that rumbles up from the depths of his chest as Frank kisses him. Frank doesn’t say anything at all, can’t really, but he digs his nails into the back of Gerard’s head and splits Gerard open at the mouth. He pours out everything he’s got to say into the kiss. Presses every bit of his worry and regrets, and all the ways he’s wanted this, into the pressure of their lips. Gerard’s hands seize him by the waist, pulling their bodies inch to inch together. The air is cold and dim around them but everything inside of Frank is hot, hot, hot with want and relief.

_I missed you_ , Frank wants to say, but his words aren’t there yet. He thinks Gerard gets it anyway, feels it in the way they cling together. He remembers why he used to think Gerard could read his mind.

Frank’s just marveling at the ability to be this close to Gerard again. When the kiss finally breaks, he lets Gerard’s arms around his waist steady him as he leans back to look into Gerard’s face again. Frank is the one to scrape Gerard’s hair behind his ears this time, in that way that makes Gerard seem so much younger.

He leans their foreheads together for a moment, before the words inside him become too much. He bends down for the notebook he’d forgotten about and the feels the moment Gerard notices the sling on Frank’s arm by the stiffening of his entire body. The blush on Gerard’s face disappears. Gerard draws back, staring down at Frank’s busted wrist with a dawning look of horror.

“You’re hurt,” Gerard says. His voice cracks. “Mikey _hurt_ you?”

Frank very quickly abandons the notebook, changing tracks to step closer as Gerard steps away. He can’t talk, but he can wave his good hand, doing his best to convey, _I’m fine, it’s okay, don’t freak out please,_ at him.

“Oh, God.” Gerard stumbles back from him even more, hand coming up to his mouth. “God, Frank. I am _so, so sorry.”_

Frank grabs at Gerard’s hand again, not letting him run away. “ _Ac-ci-dent_ ,” he mouths, shaking his head firmly. “ _Gerard. Ac-ci-dent_.”

It doesn’t matter that Frank doesn’t really believe it. Or that he’s still pissed as all hell at Mikey about it. What matters is getting Gerard to stop looking like he’s just murdered a puppy and smeared its blood all over Frank’s body.

Gerard is still sucking in these quick little breaths, curling away every time Frank touches him. Frank doesn’t really care, continuing to rub his thumb across the back of Gerard’s hand, not letting go or giving up with each step in retreat Gerard attempts to make.

Eventually, Gerard’s back hits the wall, the same one Frank’s taken over with his drawings. Gerard’s eyes flicker towards the band room door, like he’s going to run, but Frank gets the better idea of tugging on his hand until they both fold to the ground. Gerard curls over his knees and puts both hands Frank hasn’t captured up over his head. Frank sidles up until their sides are pressed together, squeezing their fingers together as Gerard shakes.

In between Gerard’s hiccuping breaths, Frank can make out the sounds of an apology. He shakes his head, but Gerard isn’t looking at him. Frank huffs, but even that’s silent. This would all be much easier if he could talk.

Since he can’t, Frank does the next best thing. The pen is still in his jacket pocket. Frank pulls it out without untangling their fingers, then smooths Gerard’s palm out against his knee. He stares scribbling.

About a minute into his panic, Gerard finally calms down enough to look.

_I’m not scared of you. I’m never going to be scared of you. What happened wasn’t your fault. None of it was. I’m okay. I promise._

“You can’t _talk_ ,” Gerard croaks, lifting his head from his knees.

Frank levels him a wholly unimpressed look. _Then fix it,_ he writes.

Gerard gapes at him, open-mouthed like maybe he forgot the only reason Frank was here in front of him right now was because he’d already broken half of the curse. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” Gerard says again. “I’m such an idiot.”

Frank shakes his head. Less apologizing, more fixing please.

Gerard straightens up. Frank hasn’t seen him work his magic before. Not really. Mostly when they were screwing around with his tattoos, Gerard was using potions and herbs, not the sort of verbal magic he prepares now. The air gets sort of thunderous, cold and pregnant as it waits for Gerard’s magic to strike. Frank finally understands why Gerard always smells a bit like lightning.

“ _Talk to me, Frank_ ,” Gerard commands and Frank the last hook of Mikey’s curse slips out from under Frank’s tongue.

Frank clears his throat experimentally. The sound actually makes it out from behind his teeth.

Frank turns to Gerard, and the smile on his face must be demonic, because its stretched so far his cheeks actually ache.

“Hey,” he says.

Gerard just blinks at him slowly, eyes shiny and dark. The hand under Frank’s fingers trembles and curls. “I am so sorry, Frank.”

“It’s not your fault.” It feels excellent to say those words aloud. Frank has a lot to say actually, but he starts with, “Hey, Gerard. Just look at me a second.”

It takes a long moment, but Gerard’s eyes eventually lift up to meet his. Frank uses his good hand to pull Gerard’s other set of fingers out of his hair. He pulls that hand into his lap too, holding them securely against his body.

There’s been a lot Frank’s wanted to say. A lot that he’s wanted to do. He starts with the most simple and honest. “I’m sorry I missed our date. Im sorry I made you think I was scared of you or that you had done something wrong.” Gerard’s eyebrows pinch together. Frank shushes him before he can interrupt. “No wait, let me finish.”

Gerard slowly closes his mouth. The whites of his eyes grow as he stares at Frank.

“What happened wasn’t either of our faults,” Frank continues, “but I know it still hurt, so I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I was hurt too, but not by you. And I really am okay now. I know we have stuff to talk about. I’ve got, like, a _million_ things I want to tell you, but honestly? Right now I really just want to kiss you again.”

Gerard stare at him like he can’t quite understand what Frank is saying. Frank knows the feeling. “You can say something now,” he adds, when Gerard just sits there.

The permission seems to wake Gerard. He sits up, trying to draw his hands out of Frank’s lap only for Frank to follow him, tangling their fingers back together. Gerard looks down at their hands like they are some kind of treasure map.

“Why?” he whispers.

“Why don’t I blame you?” Frank asks. “That’s an easy one. It wasn’t your fault.”

Gerard shakes his head. “Why do you want to kiss me?”

Frank smiles. That’s an even easier question. “I like you and I want to.” He shrugs. “Do we need a bigger reason?”

Gerard looks uncertain. Frank waits him out. Finally, Gerard admits, “I don’t know.”

That’s okay. Frank’s got enough conviction for this plan for the both of them.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Frank says, “because I like you and I think you like me too and that’s a big enough reason for me. So says so now if you don’t want me to.”

Frank waits as Gerard’s eyelids flutter, waits until his gaze comes back up again to meet him, waits until Gerard shives as Frank leans in.

Gerard doesn’t say anything, but he _does_ make a sound that’s close to sighing as Frank kisses him again. Their palms squeeze together.

Frank smiles against Gerard’s lips. He can’t wait to see the ink stains he’ll leave beneath Gerard’s skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an epilogue to go. Don't worry, we're going to tie up the loose ends before we're done here. 
> 
> Your fic rec of the week is [Fresh Meat on L Street](https://archiveofourown.org/works/824189) by [morbid_beauty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morbid_beauty/pseuds/morbid_beauty). This is one of my all time favorite series on bandom. Think of a college-au with plenty of angst and pining and a love triangle you'll actually adore.


	10. Chapter 10

They do talk later, after the bell for class rings and the hallways begin to fill. By some miracle (or perhaps a touch of Gerard’s magic) no one uses the backdoor to cut to the hallways. Frank might get in more trouble with his mom for ditching again later, but it’s worth it in the moment to just to soak up the moment with Gerard.

They sit against Frank’s wall holding hands, heads and shoulders pressed together. Gerard runs his fingers over the faded ink on Frank’s palm as Frank explains all that he’s learned while they were apart.

“We’ll fix it all the way,” Gerard promises, pushing his thumb across Frank’s lifeline, not minding the way it comes back black.

“I don’t care,” Frank says. “I can go out in public. That’s good enough for me.”

“We’ll fix it,” Gerard repeats.

Frank sighs and lets him win. It’s peaceful in the back alley, even when the vague sounds of drums and guitars from inside the band room float out to them. The air is cool, but Gerard is warm. Frank hums just to listen to his own voice and feels another piece of himself settle back into his skin.

“I can fix this too,” says Gerard quietly, linking his fingers to Frank’s bad hand. He’s terribly gentle about it, so it doesn’t hurt. Frank likes the press of their calloused fingertips together.

“You’re not responsible for your brother,” Frank says. “I’m not mad at you. It wasn’t your fault.”

“He’s my brother,” Gerard denies, shaking his head. “He’s—We’re always going to be responsible for each other.”

Frank tilts his head. He doesn’t really get it. He’s always been a single child. There are friends he’s come to love as family, friends he would get into a fight for, but no one he feels the need to protect outright. He thinks about sheer the suspicion on Mikey’s face from the moment they met and doesn’t have to wonder if the same is true for him.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Frank asks quietly.

“With what?”

Frank shifts, sitting up a bit more to where he’s facing Gerard, instead of pressed up to his side. “Why is Mikey so protective of you?”

Gerard’s fingers twitch against his. Frank squeezes back, meeting Gerard’s eyes steadily when his gaze finally flickers up. “You don’t have to,” Frank concedes, spotting uncertainty flicker across Gerard’s face, “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

Frank just hums, thinking of the mistakes he’s already made. “I might.”

Gerard breathes out heavily and settles back against the wall. After a minute he confides, “It’s not what you’re thinking. No one actually hurt me. It was mostly just head stuff.” He waves a hand around is head with a little self-deprecating smile. Frank doesn’t love it.

“I doubt that,” he says.

The smile dims on Gerard’s face. He drops his hand onto his knee, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Explain it to me anyway?”

Gerard sighs again. He looks down at their held hands and Frank gives him an encouraging squeeze. Finally, Gerard looks back up at him. “When did you start loving music?”

Frank blinks at him. “Forever,” he says, knowing it to be true. “It’s a family thing. Music has always been a part of my life.”

Gerard nods. He doesn’t look surprised or doubtful. “When did you start playing?”

Frank’s tempted to say forever again. “Sort of the same. I started my first band at eleven, so before that. I couldn’t say exactly when. My dad was sneaking me backstage since before I could walk.”

Gerard rests his head against Frank’s shoulder and the two of them shift, getting comfortable again. “Magic is like that for me and Mikey,” Gerard says.

“You’ve been doing it forever?” Frank asks.

“Yeah. Mom didn’t like us going outside without an adult so we spent a lot of time as kids just practicing tricks—stuff we saw on TV and in comics. It was just messing around. We didn’t really know how dangerous it was. Mostly things just didn’t work if we got them wrong.”

Frank can see it, two little heads ducked together pretending to be superheroes. He thinks everyone had a phase when they tried to be like the witches on TV, before they learn that most of the ‘spells’ shown are just nonsense words and special effects. Frank wonders if no one ever told Gerard.

“So what happened?” Frank asks.

“People started to notice,” Gerard sighs. “I think it was around seventh grade. I didn’t—it hadn’t really seemed like a big deal what me and Mikey were doing. I mean, I knew we were good at magic, that was pretty clear when classes started, but I thought it was just like being really good at math or something.”

“People were scared?” Frank guesses.

Gerard shakes his head, snorting. “Are you kidding? People thought I was the next Merlin.” He gestures at himself. What Frank is supposed to be seeing with that, he’s not sure. “I wasn’t like this yet. I was just this chubby, nerdy, loser kid. I thought helping people would make me like a superhero, or at least stop people from picking on me. I got in some trouble with the school for cheating, but it seemed worth it. I wanted to be popular so bad.”

Gerard’s voice grows thin on the last words. Frank waits as he sorts through his thoughts, stroking his hand with his thumb. Eventually, Gerard shakes his head again. “It didn’t work, of course. People wanted things from me. They didn’t like me. When I couldn’t deliver, it was all they needed to be shitty to me again.”

“Bullying?”

Gerard’s shoulders lift and fall. “I don’t know. Mostly they were just kind of mean. By eighth grade I was burning out pretty hard. What people wanted just kept getting bigger and bigger. I was spending all my time researching and casting. I wasn’t sleeping or eating right. I was using caffeine and stimulant potions to keep up. Like, a lot of them. I knew they could be addictive, but I thought I was in control of everything.”

Gerard pauses, blinking out at the air in front of him like it held some sort of secret. “When you’re doing that much magic, it _feels_ like you have control of everything. It’s hard to explain. Even though I was exhausted constantly and felt like shit all the time, I felt powerful too. Special.”

Frank is quiet. Gerard’s grip on his hand is tight and sweaty. Frank clings back, grateful to be there with him. It seems best to just let Gerard talk this out.

Gerard blinks again, still looking out at something Frank can’t see. “I ended up being admitted to the hospital because I couldn’t keep real food down. I had to go into detox. After all that, I ended up flunking out of eighth grade because I hadn’t kept up on any of my own work. I really scared my mom and Mikey.”

Frank’s stomach is somewhere near his toes. He leans in, pressing their bodies together. “God, Gerard, I’m so sorry.”

Gerard shivers, seeming to come back to himself a bit. He turns his head, smiling at Frank slightly. “Not your fault,” he says. “Like I said, I was stupid. Anyway, all those people I was working so hard for ended up graduating to high school without me. I was an even bigger loser for failing to promote. It was a big joke. Of course, when school started again they still wanted favors, but Mikey was in middle school by then and ended up starting a few rumors about where I was when I was in the hospital. That scared most of them off. Plus, I started getting back into my sort of magic again, which isn’t always pleasant to be around. I wasn’t popular, but at least people left me alone.”

Gerard shrugs, like none of this really matters. Frank follows his gut and pulls Gerard in for a hug with his good hand. Gerard sits stiff for a moment, before he relaxes into a puddle of soft, warm flesh against Frank.

When Frank pulls away, Gerard gazes at him softly. “Thanks.”

Frank shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have asked you for this,” Frank says, gesturing at his tattoos. “This whole thing was a mistake. I don’t want you to think I’m just using you like one of those assholes.”

Gerard smiles at him wider, showing his little teeth. “You aren’t,” he promises. “I don’t just give away magic any more. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to.”

That doesn’t stop the niggling bit of guilt in Frank, but he breathes, trying to let it go. He looks down at his hands again. It’s been long enough for the ink to start bleeding into his skin. “I really should have just gone for a stick-and-poke method, huh?”

Gerard laughs. “Maybe,” he agrees, winding their fingers together again, “but then we wouldn’t have met.”

Frank melts against his side. “That,” he declares, “is an excellent point.”

“You’re going to hurt him.”

Frank lets his chair fall back on all four legs as Mikey Way comes around the library bookshelf. It’s been almost a week since Frank broke the curse keeping him away from gerard. He hasn’t seen Mikey in all that time, though he knows Gerard said he was going to talk to him.

Nothing stops the slight uptick in adrenaline as Mikey pulls out a seat and sits down across from him.

Frank takes that moment to just observe Mikey. He understands the root of Mikey’s protectiveness since hearing Gerard’s story, but that doesn’t stop him from being pissed about what happened. Gerard had given him a salve that’s been speeding up the healing of his wrist significantly (maybe even the same bottle Mikey tried to shove on him after injuring him in the first place) but Frank still has to wear the stupid sling for at least another week. That’s not even taking into account the mindfuckery Mikey’s screwed him with.

Still, Mikey appears stretched thin and tired as he sits. There are tight lines around his eyes and a pinched tension to his mouth as he glares at Frank. His hair falls flat and greasy around his ears and glasses.

“Hi, Mikey,” Frank says. He closes the notebook he’d been writing in, bleeding some of the ink out between classes, and carefully sets down his pen. “You should know Gerard will go ape shit if you try to curse me again. Just as a heads up.” 

“I’m not here to curse you.”

“Then why are you here?” Frank asks neutrally. He packs up his pens and notebook and slips them both into his backpack. He’s not really afraid of Mikey anymore, not with Gerard on his side and aware of everything, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be in close contact with him either.

Mikey’s nostrils flair. “I don’t trust you.”

“Ditto,” returns Frank. “Look, if you’re just here to tell me to fuck off, you’re too late. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Mikey huffs out an aggravated sigh. “That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Then spit it out, dude.” Frank rolls his eyes. He zips up his backpack, but doesn’t get up yet. He just watches the way Mikey scowls at the table.

After a long minute, Mikey finally lifts his gaze up from the table to glare something venomous at Frank. “Gerard won’t talk to me. He’s pissed about the spell.”

Frank snorts. “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.”

“He says he told you what happened,” Mikey adds, gaze boring into the side of Frank’s skull. Frank studiously avoids looking anywhere near Mikey’s face, even though it didn’t do him much good last time.

“That doesn’t mean I forgive you,” Frank says, crossing his arms. “That was really shitty, dude. I know you think you need to protect him, but Gerard isn’t a kid. He can take care of himself.”

“You didn’t see him the last time.”

“I don’t care. What you did was shitty. Good reasons don’t make it better.” Frank shakes his head, uncrossing his arms to run a hand through his hair. “If you didn’t come here to threaten me, what do you want, Mikey?”

Mikey just scowls at him. “Gerard says I have to fix things with you before he’ll talk to me again.”

Frank sighs. Just once, he’d like one of these Way brothers to consult him before they go messing around with his life. “That’s not really my problem, dude.”

He picks up his backpack and pushes back out of his chair. Mikey stands with him. “It should be,” he challenges. “If you care about Gerard like you said, you’d want to fix this too.”

Frank holds up his one good palm, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “I’m not going to justify our relationship to you, and you’re not guilting me about this. You’re the one that fucked up, Mikey. I didn’t do shit to you.”

Mikey’s jaw is so tight, Frank can almost hear his teeth grinding. His eyes drop to the table, which makes Frank relax only incrementally after the last time. He looks at the gap between him and the shelves, wondering if he can’t just shove past Mikey to get out of here. Eventually, Frank gets tired of waiting and just goes for it. Surprisingly, he gets past Mikey with no problem. They don’t even touch.

Thinking that’s the end of it, Frank grabs his backpack straps and heads for the door, only to pulled up when Mikey bites out, “I promise I won’t use compulsions on you again.”

Frank stops walking. He turns on his heel with his eyebrows high. He can’t help looking at Mikey incredulously. His fear is temporarily waylaid by his disbelief.

“That’s it?” he asks. “Seriously? Oh, you’re going to promise me. Gee thanks. You seriously think I’d trust that?”

Now that he’s looking Mikey in the face he can see just how sour his glare still is. Mikey lifts his shoulders. “Now you know how I feel.”

Frank squares off against him, recrossing his arms across his chest. “Those things are seriously fucked up,” he says, shivering just thinking about it. Frank never wants to feel Mikey in his head again, never wants to feel that out of control in his own body.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Mikey’s voice is tinged with frustration. “I won’t use them on you again. You get to stay with Gerard.”

“Not good enough,” Frank returns. Gathering up his courage, he takes a step closer. It makes his palms break out in sweat, but his voice comes out clear and steady when he says, “If you want me to forgive you, you have to promise to never use those things again. On anyone. Ever. I don’t think you get how completely fucked up they are.”

Mikey’s hands squeeze open and shut near his thighs. He’s got a good poker face, but it’s failing him now. If this is what Mikey looks like after just a week on the outs with his brother no wonder he’s in here bartering with Frank.

“You’re asking for a lot,” Mikey finally mutters.

“So are you,” Frank says. “So?”

The veins in Mikey’s neck stand out as he slowly nods. Frank uncrosses his arms, holding out his hand. He works very hard to keep from flinching when Mikey takes it. They release very quickly. Frank sees Mikey glance down at the new ink on his hand, but he doesn’t mention it. Gerard must have explained.

“Are we good then?” Mikey asks, looking as uncomfortable as Frank feels.

“I’ll tell Gerard I forgave you,” Frank nods, stepping back. “ _Are_ we good?”

“I still don’t trust you,” Mikey says. “If you hurt him—”

“I know,” cuts in Frank. “I don’t trust you either, but I don’t plan on hurting Gerard.”

After a moment, Mikey nods stiffly. Frank copies it. He takes a few steps away, before stopping. When he turns around, he sees Mikey staring slightly lost at the bookshelves around them.

Frank sighs, rolls his eyes to the sky, and wonders when he became such a wimp.

“Come on,” Frank calls, and Mikey’s head jerks up. “You might as well be with me to deliver the good news.”

The smell of candles burning is hidden under the scent of cigarette smoke. Frank glances at the end of the alley, where Ray Toro stands with Mikey Way on the look out for campus security officers. Frank doesn’t know either of them well, but he’s glad they’re both there at the moment. He doesn’t really want to imagine what would happen if a teacher saw him with his shirt off kneeling in the middle of an array on the asphalt.

“Stop twitching,” Gerard mutters, running his brush against Frank’s spine and sending a tingle down his ribs.

“You know, there’s about a thousand places we could have chosen to do this,” Frank says, trying and failing to settle back down onto his knees. He wants to turn around so badly to check what Gerard is doing, but he’d promised not to peek.

“You’re the one that started it.”

Frank jumps when he feels lips against his neck. “Should you really be doing that right now?” he hisses, looking panicked at the array around him. It’s identical to the one he once scribbled on his backroom floor, except that Gerard’s lines are about a million times neater than his, ruler or no. Frank thinks he’s learned his lesson about adding flair while performing blood magic though.

“Relax.” Gerard’s hands slip over his shoulders, pushing them down. “The magic has already accepted the transfer. This part is just for fun.”

“Well could you hurry up the fun bit?” Frank complains, crossing his arms across his naked chest. He uncrosses them again quickly, only because he still can’t get over the sight of his pale blank skin. He’s only had the tattoos for a few weeks and yet his body seems alien without them. There’s a part of him that sort of aches to see them go.

“Almost done,” Gerard promises, rubbing at his neck before letting go.

Frank closes his eyes and tries to settle, listening as Gerard shifts behind him. There’s the rustle of his clothes as he moves around, the swipe of his paintbrush against the wall. Frank tries to picture what Gerard is creating. He knows what he imagines won’t be half as good as the real thing.

He opens his eyes again when he hears footsteps approach. Frank looks up to see Mikey squinting at something above and behind him.

“Bell’s gonna ring soon,” Mikey reports, flicking his cigarette in a gesture that might be nerves or just restlessness. Frank’s still learning to read him. “You almost done, Gee?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Even without turning, Frank knows Gerard must be waving his hands at the warning. He grins. “Just gimme a minute.”

Mikey flicks his cigarette again—impatience, Frank thinks. “Just hurry it up. Ray’s getting nervous.”

Mikey takes a drag of his smoke, eyes flittering down to Frank quickly before turning and walking back towards the end of the alley. Frank can’t help but relax once he’s gone. By a silent mutual agreement, they both avoid interacting with each other as much as possible. Gerard doesn’t like it, but he only pouts quietly. Frank’s only seriously considered punching Mikey once since his sling came off, so their cold war must be working. Maybe one day he and Mikey will be okay enough to try to be friends, but though Frank has said he’s forgiven him, he hasn’t forgotten anything just yet.

The brush returns to Frank’s spine. Frank likes to imagine he can feel it pulling out the ink from his tattoos. It might just be in his head, but it’s a good feeling. Gerard must be on the last one now. He pictures the jack o’lantern fading from view and almost asks Gerard to pause, maybe he wants to keep just one, but then Gerard’s hand brushes over that spot again and Frank loses the thought.

“Done?” Frank asks, when Gerard doesn’t move away.

“I think so,” Gerard says. “You want to blow the candles out?”

For all his momentary regret, Frank really, really doesn’t want to mess this thing up. “Nah. You do it.”

Gerard, the show off that he is, flicks his fingers and all the candles go out with a whoosh. Frank breathes a little easier once the tingly sensation of the ritual dissipates. He takes the hand Gerard offers to him and gets pulled to his feet.

He spreads his arms, closing his eyes as he turns in a full circle. “How am I looking? Am I good?”

Hands come up and stop him from spinning. Lips land against his cheek. “Yeah, come on. I want to show you.”

“Clothes first,” Frank says, ignoring Gerard’s pulling to bend down and pick up his shirt and jacket, shoving them over his head before letting Gerard to tug him towards the wall. He forgets to close his eyes first, and gets treated to Gerard’s massive pout when he swears the second he sees what Gerard has done with it.

“Holy fuck, Gerard.”

“You were supposed to close your eyes.”

Frank steps back. He has to, to get the full scope of what Gerard has accomplished in just one class period. The wall that Frank had poured his ink into has been transformed again. Gerard’s expert hands have turned his doodles into real art work. His tattoos have been beautifully copied and expanded upon. Gerard’s added his own designs—comic characters creeping between Frank’s tattoos, shadowy figures that might have Mikey’s thin frame or Frank’s sling or Ray’s hair peek out in miniature scenes that shadow the spaces Frank had left open.

Unlike the ink before, the mural moves even as Frank watches it. He sees the two doves that once lived on his navel flap their wings and fly to the highest point of the wall. A bullet leaves one of revolvers that used to color his back and shoots across to the other side.

In the center of it all grins Frank’s jack o’lantern, bigger and meaner than it ever was on Frank’s skin. It’s in black and white still, but the shadows seem to flicker as if lit by a flame within.

Gerard bends down and flicks his fingers at the candles that line the alley wall. With a gush of wind they flicker out, completing the ritual entirely. Even the chalk scrubs itself out, leaving the alley concrete bare and clueless.

“This is amazing, Gee,” Frank breathes, stepping closer now that he’s got the full scope of the project in his mind. He keeps his hands carefully to himself as he studies the living ink.

“You can touch it,” Gerard says, coming up behind him. From down the alley, Frank sees Ray and Mikey drawing closer too. “The spell is finished this time. It won’t leave the wall.”

“You’re going to be in so much trouble,” says Ray, coming up behind them both. Frank doesn’t know Ray well yet, but his intuition about him being a good person has turned out right. He whistles long and low as he looks at the wall.

Gerard shrugs. “I graduate this year. It’s not my fault if they can’t figure out how to remove one little blood ritual.”

Frank snorts. He turns his head, burying his face in Gerard’s hair for a moment. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

“Right. I’m out,” Mikey grunts, eyeing their display of affection with less hostility than he did last week. It’s still not zero, but it’s progress at least. He turns to Ray. “You coming?”

Ray nods and the two of them walk out, collecting some of the candles as they go. Gerard puts his arms around Frank and pulls him back against his chest, swaying them slightly as they both look at the mural.

“We should probably get to class,” Gerard sighs as the bell finally rings. “Your mom will kill me if you ditch again.”

“She’s warming back up,” Frank protests, twisting around to kiss Gerard’s chin. “She let me out of the house last weekend, remember?”

“She sat behind us in the movie theater,” Gerard grumbles. Frank grimaces. Yeah, there was that.

It feels anticlimactic to pick up their backpacks and the rest of the candles and walk out of the alley. In the sunlight, Gerard draws back into himself, whether that’s because there are less shadows to hide in or because of the people hurrying around them Frank is still learning. Gerard drops his hand when they step into the rush, but Frank picks it back up again.

He looks down at their plain pale hands and stops walking. Gerard stops too, looking down at him curiously. Frank reaches into his pocket, picking up the pen that seems to live there permanently. He offers it out.

“One for the road?” Frank asks, wiggling his bare fingers.

Gerard’s eyebrows raise. “I thought you’d be sick of them by now.”

“Nah,” Frank grins. “I think I’ll put them all back eventually, the real way. Slowly, and when my mom can’t legally ground me for life. I just want to be the one in control next time.”

Gerard smiles at him then, this little closed lip smile, and pulls up Frank’s sleeve to scribble something on his wrist. Frank kisses Gerard when he’s done, an easy, unremarkable kiss that only last a second. “Walk me to class?”

Gerard just nods, capping the pen and handing it back. Frank pulls down his sleeve without looking and winds their fingers together. He puts the pen back in his pocket, sure he’ll need something to scribble on himself with later.

Frank’s grown accustom to ink appearing on his skin without notice. He grins again as Gerard walks him down the hallway, savoring the surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! Thanks to everyone who has commented and shown love for this story. It's the first multi-chapter thing I've ever finished, believe it or not. 
> 
> I'm considering expanding on this universe. Lemme know down below if you'd rather see a prequel checking out Gerard's early years or something of a Mikey-centered sequel.


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